


Harry Potter and the Malleus Mallardeficarum

by Abracabadger



Series: SIYE Apparition Challenge (2016-1) [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Apparition Insanity, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Misuse of Ducks, SIYE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 06:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20403121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abracabadger/pseuds/Abracabadger
Summary: As the mayhem resulting from the lifting of apparition restrictions at Hogwarts settles down, Harry Potter is trying to survive the last few days of term without going mad. His best friends are behaving strangely, Malfoy is being a git, and, most importantly, he has to learn to dance before the Yule Ball. He’s not the only one with problems, however, and somewhere amidst all this he needs to help Neville Longbottom in his search for a way to restore Luna Lovegood to normality after her avian apparition aberration.If there’s one person he can rely on to keep him sane amidst all this, it’s Ginny Weasley, his best friend’s little sister… and now, his date for the Ball. Oh yes, her twin brothers areveryinterested in that development.Harry may be in even more trouble than usual, here.A sequel (and very definitely the finale) to Wondrous Apparition Provided By Magician. You probably need to read that for this to even begin to make sense.No ducks were harmed in the writing of this fic, although one was severely inconvenienced andextremelyconfused.





	1. Fit the First

**Author's Note:**

> * * *
> 
> Imported from SIYE.  
A nonsense in four fits. The mayhem continues...

* * * * *

Late December at Hogwarts meant delicate traceries of ice crystals that slowly grew together and spread across the window panes in the night, it meant mornings where the grass crunched and cracked beneath your feet on the way to Herbology, and when an anaemic sun finally burned away the dense Scottish mist it revealed a world rimed in hoar-frost.

It meant feet that froze on the ancient stone floors of the castle even inside two pairs of woollen socks, and breath that fogged and steamed the moment you stepped outside. Only the very daring relied on a single jumper and a warming charm, because the wind sliced through you like there was nothing between you and the North Pole except the occasional Yeti. Well, only the very daring and Morag MacDougall, the chirpy Shetland Islander who bounced around in a skirt and shirtsleeves all year long. Even Professor McGonagall, that hardiest of teachers and well-accustomed to the inclement Scottish weather, was overheard one morning, as she watched Morag skipping out to Hagrid’s hut for Care of Magical Creatures, muttering that the girl was clearly insane.

Two weeks had passed since the lifting of apparition restrictions in Hogwarts castle. Two weeks of students almost but not _quite_ entirely mastering the art of magical transportation by means of apparition. Two weeks of shamefaced splinchings, humiliating hopping, and mortifying mergings. Two weeks that had reduced most of the staff to tears — tears of exhausted frustration from three-quarters of the Heads of House, and tears of malignant glee from Professor Snape at the carnage unfolding everywhere but Slytherin House. As for the visiting students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, their teachers still didn’t feel it was safe to emerge from their quarters, which was somewhat defeating the hands-across-the-borders, building-international-fellowship that was the whole point of recommencing the Triwizard Tournament.

It was also two weeks of bewilderment for Harry Potter of Gryffindor, not only at the antics of his housemates — who, despite all the odds, did seem to be slowly getting the hang of this apparition lark — but also at the way his relationship with his two best friends had suddenly and inexplicably splintered.

There was now a lot of awkward silences when the three of them were together, much more than there had been before and almost as bad as when Ron and Hermione had fought over the fate of Scabbers the previous year. Two days after Ron’s misadventures in magical movement — the gory details of which were reluctantly confided to Harry in an appalled whisper up in their dorm in the dead of night — Hermione had marched up to him in the common room with a determined look on her face and asked, “So, Ron… are you going to the Yule Ball with anyone?”

Ron had looked up from the Quidditch magazine hidden in his textbook and tried to focus. “Err… what?”

“You heard, Ronald.”

Even Ron realised that Hermione using his full name was the sort of warning signal that usually caused whole cities to flee to well-reinforced bunkers.

“So?”

With a desperate glance at Harry, he’d wriggled and squirmed and finally mumbled, “No, actually. Not yet, anyw-”

“Good! In that case, you’re going with me,” she said decisively.

Ron blinked. “I am?”

“Yes. Now that that’s settled, you can take me to Hogsmeade this weekend, too. You’ll need the practice,” she added in a lower voice, almost to herself.

“Um… but we’re already going to Hogsmeade this weekend,” Ron pointed out, with a baffled glance at Harry. “You said you wanted to get your mum’s Christmas present from Scrivenshaft’s?”

“Then you’d better come and help me with it, hadn’t you?” said Hermione, her cheeks pinkening. “I’m glad we’ve got that sorted. Must dash, Arithmancy club’s starting soon.”

She’d bustled off at something close to a run, leaving a very confused Ron watching her go, and a very amused Harry trying not to laugh.

“What the hell was all that about?” Ron asked once he’d regained control of his higher thought processes.

“I _think_ your problem of finding a date for the ball has just been solved,” Harry said, in a strangled voice. He didn’t dare take a deeper breath for fear of it coming out as raucous laughter and offending his friend.

“Yeah, well… she… but…” Ron threw his hands up in despair, “She’s mental!”

_Oh, good grief, there are times when Ron sends himself up without even knowing it_. “Yeah. Well done, mate. Sorry, I’ve got to, uh…”

With that, he’d dashed up to his dorm room, thrown himself onto his bed, and guffawed into his pillow. When he finally had it all out of his system, he’d rolled over to find Ron sitting sulkily on his own bed.

“I don’t know what you think’s so funny, Potter, you’re the one who still needs a date.”

“Err… yeah. About that.”

Ron had needed a lot of reassurance that his hearing hadn’t failed.

“_Ginny_? As in, my sister, Ginny? Red hair, short-arsed, kind of annoying? That one?”

“Ron-”

“You _do_ mean the one with the Harry Potter obsession, right? Merlin’s beard, she’s going to be absolutely sickening!”

“No, your other sister. What do you think?!”

“What do _I_ think? I think that dragon must have hit you in the head during the first task, and we didn’t notice!”

“Oh, shut up!”

Ron shook his head and flopped back, grabbing another magazine off his bedside table. “Oh well, you got yourself into this mess, you can get yourself out of it, I suppose.”

“Gee, thanks! Git!”

Harry stalked out, and Ron watched him go.

“What?”

* * * * *

Since then, everything had been… awkward. Even although he knew they didn’t mean to, now all of a sudden he’d catch his two best friends staring at each other and immediately feel like a third wheel. There were the pauses and sudden blushes, and he simply didn’t quite know what to do other than be somewhere else.

Fortunately, outside of class, that ‘somewhere else’ was increasingly with Ginny. What was great was that she was always happy to see him but didn’t make a big thing of it, and would simply include him in whatever she was doing. He could sit by her at lunch and she’d simply say something like, “Oh, hi Harry. You know Angus and Katherine, of course,” and carry on with her conversation, expanding it a little to include him.

He was also embarrassed to admit that he _didn’t_ know Angus and Katherine, or quite a number of his fellow Gryffindors, as more than just names and faces. Through Ginny he was starting to get to know them and, after some initial awkwardness, the younger students were starting to loosen up a little around him, too.

That left the approaching horror of the Yule Ball. Once again, after his initial agonies at having to find somewhere to practice chewed up more than a week, Ginny simply took charge. He was stunned at the way she just _walked up to Professor McGonagall at lunch and asked_.

“Excuse me, Professor, but with the Ball coming up, Harry’s going to need some practice for the dance. I said I’d help him out, but we need somewhere to go and some music, and I was hoping you might be able to help?”

The stern professor simply raised an eyebrow slightly. “Indeed, Miss Weasley. You may have the use of my classroom in the evenings from seven until curfew. We can’t have Mr. Potter tripping over himself in front of the whole school, now, can we? Although I have to say, Mr. Potter, I’m a little disappointed you didn’t come to me about this yourself.”

Harry turned red and tried to think of a way to explain himself, but failed. After a moment, the professor took pity on him.

“Seven o’clock, Mr. Potter. Don’t be late.”

And so it was that after a dinner of sausage and mash and what felt like a whole swarm of _lepidoptera_, he was waiting in a corner of the common room, alternately watching the door to the common room and the stairs to the girls’ dorms for Ginny.

She appeared at maybe ten minutes to seven from the dorms, her face scrubbed and her long, red hair pulled back in a tail. Harry immediately felt like he should have made more of an effort. She had that effect on him, he noticed.

“Hi, Harry! Are you ready?”

“No!” The answer slipped out before he could stop it, and she laughed.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. You’ll be fine!”

“Hi, guys.”

They both looked around at Neville’s distracted greeting as he marched past them with a grim look on his face. They said, ‘Hi’ back, but he didn’t stop and headed out through the portrait hole.

Harry watched him go. “I don’t know what’s going on with Neville, but he’s been in a bit of a mood recently.”

“Have you asked?”

Harry just looked at her like she was mad, which earned him a patient sigh and an eye-roll.

“I think he’s worried about Luna. They’d been spending quite a bit of time together until.. well… _that_ happened.”

Harry grimaced. “I can’t believe she’s still stuck like that. I mean it’s been, what, two weeks?”

“There’s not many things that Madam Pomfrey can’t fix, but she had to get the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad out — and when they couldn’t sort it out they called in the Department of Mysteries.”

“What worries me is that _Dumbledore_ couldn’t fix it, either. I mean, maybe she really is stuck like that.”

Ginny made a face, “Maybe it’ll wear off, eventually? I’m sure they’ll come up with something. Although, there is good news; Dad tells me that the Ministry is taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. They’re going to make an amendment to the apparition regulations - ‘You must not apparate with a duck on your head. Just don’t. We’re not fooling around, here’. It should only take a few years to approve, apparently.”

“If _that_ doesn’t straighten it out, I don’t know what will,” Harry said drily. “You know, as much as I don’t want to blame Luna in all this — what on earth was she thinking, anyway? She specifically _caught a duck and stunned it_ to try this out. I mean, who _does_ that?!”

“Not helping, Harry! She’s always been a lateral thinker.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” _Other than she’s completely barking_, he didn’t add. _Or in this case — quackers. Oh, God, did I really just think that?_

“Anyway, I don’t think Luna’s taking it very well,” Ginny continued, “All her house-mates are being horrible and she’s got no-one much to talk to, other than Grant Page.”

Harry had heard about the things some of the Ravenclaws did to their house-mate. None of it was kind. “What is it this time?”

“Well, just look at her. The Ravens are sick of everyone calling them the Ducks. It doesn’t help that every time she goes anywhere near the lake, Malfoy and his goons start throwing duck pellets. The Giant Squid has been very good about fishing her out, but-”

Harry was having trouble keeping a straight face.

“_It’s not funny_! There’s some sort of instinctive reaction that’s been imprinted on her and she can’t help it!”

“I know, I know.” He tried to hold it in, but couldn’t. “Still funny, though.”

Ginny glared at him and flounced out in a huff. Harry followed more slowly, suddenly and painfully aware that he’d just inserted both feet in his mouth. He caught up to her outside Professor McGonagall’s classroom and followed her inside.

The floor of the Transfiguration classroom had been cleared, all its desks and chairs neatly piled up against one wall, and Professor McGonagall was waiting for them behind her desk, her quill working its way through a pile of parchment. Harry thought guiltily back to the essay he hadn’t finished yet, hiding in the bottom of his bag. He didn’t have to take the end-of-year exams this year, but that was not an exemption from keeping up with his schoolwork.

The professor pushed aside the pile of marking and gave them a short nod. “Miss Weasley, Mr. Potter.”

“Hi, Professor,” they both said.

“Thanks for helping us,” Ginny added.

“I should have thought of this situation sooner. We tend to take it for granted that the social aspects of life are taught by your parents. Now, then, it is traditional for the dancing to begin with a waltz. You know what to do, Miss Weasley?”

“Yes, Professor. Mum taught me.” She made a face. “It’s one of those things every good girl should know, apparently,” she said, a little bitterly.

“In my day, it was something the bad girls needed to know even more,” Professor McGonagall said archly.

Ginny giggled.

“I have a suitable selection of music,” the Professor continued, pointing to a small gramophone on the end of her desk. “Let me know when you are ready to begin. And I would suggest that your school robes will only complicate matters, especially for learners.”

Ginny quickly shrugged out of her robes, leaving her school skirt and jumper, while Harry followed suit rather more slowly. Feeling very awkward, he hung his robes on the leg of one of the upturned desks.

Ginny gave him a small, reassuring smile, and began to explain in that calm, straightforward style he was starting to recognise as her stop-Harry-from-overreacting manner.

“Right, this is dead easy if you ignore all the flowery bits. The waltz is very simple; three beats, three steps. Ignore everything else going on and just concentrate on that background beat and you’ll be fine. _One_-two-three, _one_-two three, _one_-two-three… can we have some music, please, Professor?”

The gramophone hissed briefly, and a single, prolonged note of many instruments rang out. There was a pause, and then that steady, three-beat procession that Ginny had described rang out, mainly driven by the lower-voiced strings and horns.

“You hear that?” Ginny asked softly, “_One_-two-three, _one_-two three...”

Violins took up the lead, soaring high and clear above the other instruments.

“The violins are making everything sound pretty, but the beat is still there. You hear it, Harry?”

“Yeah.”

“Then just move your feet in time with the music.” She stood back a little and went through the movements as she spoke. “In your case — left foot forward, right foot to the side, left foot joins it. Then _right_ foot forward, left foot to the side, right foot joins it. _One_-two-three, _one_-two-three, _left_-side-close, _right_-side-close. Clear?”

“Err… probably?”

She grinned at him, her face flushing a little. “OK, let’s see what you’ve got, Mr. Potter. Just follow me and keep that beat in your mind.”

She stepped closer and took his hands, holding his left hand in her right away from them at shoulder height and putting his right hand on her waist before resting her left hand on top of his shoulder. Suddenly, that beat was the last thing on his mind. Flushing guiltily, he looked up and, as if she could read his mind, her grin widened, her bright, brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “Eyes on the prize, Harry. _One_-two-three, _one_-two three-”

_They are_.

She pulled him gently into movement and he lurched inelegantly after her. It took him a couple of bars to get himself approximately sorted out and his imitation of her movements became a little easier.

“Harry!” Ginny said sharply.

His head jerked up, and saw her grinning at him.

“Watch me, not my feet. You’re doing fine.”

“I’ll step on you!” he said, stumbling over his next step and nearly proving his point.

“No, you won’t, just feel that beat,” she said steadily. “You’ve got it now, don’t you? _One_-two-three, _left_-side-close...”

He had to admit, he sort of did. There were a few missteps, but other than a small flinch Ginny bore them without comment.

All too soon, it was over.

“See? Not that hard, is it? Let’s try that again.”

This time, the tune was different and the beat was a little faster, but the basic principle was the same. After a few dances, he was actually starting to enjoy himself. Ginny had a proud, challenging look in her eyes, and he found himself eager to meet that look. _I_ can _do this. I can do this, with your help_.

They didn’t do anything challenging or fancy, just kept up the simple steps until Harry actually felt confident in what he was doing. All too soon, Professor McGonagall was lifting the needle on the gramophone. Ginny curtseyed mockingly, and Harry laughed and sketched a bow in return.

“Thank you for the honour of these dances, Lady Ginevra.”

“’Twas indeed an honour, Sir Harry,” Ginny replied. “But call me Ginevra again, and I’ll hex you, mister!”

He took a step backwards. “Professor? Help?”

Professor McGonagall gave him a stern look, the sides of her mouth twitching. “I’m afraid you’re on your own, Mr. Potter. You offend a lady at your peril,” she said gravely.

Harry took a deep breath and caught both of Ginny’s hands, looking straight into her eyes. “Thank you very much for teaching me, tonight,” he said humbly.

Ginny blushed violently, although her eyes didn’t leave his. “A-any time, Harry.”

To his surprise, Professor McGonagall actually laughed. “A fine recovery, Mr. Potter. Well done tonight to you both. You should have nothing to fear at the Ball, Mr. Potter, not with Miss Weasley by your side. Do you wish to repeat this exercise tomorrow night?”

“Um, if it’s OK with you, Ginny?”

She winked at him cheerfully. “Fine.”

“Then yes, please, Professor.”

“Very well. Good night to you both.”

“Good night, Professor,” they chorused.

Outside, Harry caught Ginny’s arm. “Hey, look… I meant what I said. Thanks for helping me with this.”

Ginny bit her lip for a moment, then looked up into his eyes. “It’s OK to ask for help, Harry,” she said very softly. “I know you don’t feel comfortable with it, but every one of us is happy to help where we can. OK?”

Harry shivered. _How did I end up with friends like these?_ “Thanks, Gin.”

He was still in a thoughtful mood when they got back to the Gryffindor common room. He said good night to Ginny and headed up to his dorm. He was the only one in there, but while he was getting changed for bed, Neville walked in looking thoroughly beaten-down.

Harry thought for a moment, then decided to go for it. _She’s been right about other stuff, tonight_.

“Hey Neville, What’s up?”

Neville looked somewhat surprised at being addressed. “Oh, hiya, Harry.”

“Is everything OK? You’ve been looking a bit down recently.”

Neville sighed, and pulled off his jumper. “Yeah, I guess.”

_Here’s where he either talks to me, or thumps me one_, thought Harry. “You don’t look it.”

Neville puffed out his cheeks, and chewed the inside of his lip in thought. “It’s Luna,” he said eventually. “I feel really bad about what happened to her. I’ve been trying to find anything that might help her, but I’m not having much luck. Hermione was going to help me, but she’s had other things on her mind recently, if you know what I mean. I’ve been trying to go through the library, but it’s a big task.”

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that the school library can sort this out if Dumbledore can’t.”

Neville’s face fell even further. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Did you get anywhere? I mean, any leads or anything?”

“Not yet. Look, not to be rude, or anything, but why are you asking? Oh, Merlin, that didn’t come out right, but-”

“’Cos Ginny and I were talking about it earlier,” Harry said calmly. “She’s Luna’s friend, too.”

“She is, isn’t she?” Neville was quiet for a moment, apparently weighing up what to do next. “D’you reckon she might help?”

“For Luna? I’m sure she would. Why don’t we see if we can find her tomorrow after class?”

“Surely you’ve got the Tournament and stuff to be worrying about?”

_Yes. Yes. Oh, damn it, the bloody Tournament and that stupid egg! But..._ “Luna needs help. If there’s anything I can do, then it’s worth it.”

Neville’s shoulders slumped in relief. “That’d… that’d be great.”

Harry gave him a reassuring smile and clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m knackered. Let’s see what we can do in the morning, eh?”

Neville returned his smile weakly, but looked a little happier as he headed for his own bed. “Yeah. ‘Night, Harry. And — thanks.”

* * * * *

Harry awoke early the next day and tried to get through the last-minute study for Charms that he hadn’t finished the previous night, but his eyes didn’t seem to want to focus, and he was glad when Ron stumbled down half an hour later, still yawning hugely. A quiet pop produced a freshly-scrubbed Hermione, and so they set off for the Great Hall and breakfast together.

Standing in the entrance hall, Crabbe and Goyle loomed like a pair of particularly-ugly gargoyles. There was no immediate sign of their usual ringleader, and from much experience the three friends immediately eased their hands onto their wands. Sure enough, there was the sharp _crack!_ of apparition, and Draco Malfoy appeared between his lackeys, leaning nonchalantly against the wall. Or at least, he would have been, had the wall not been six inches further away that he’d expected, leaving him scrabbling to avoid falling on his face. Harry only narrowly avoided loosing off a stunning spell on instinct.

_Good grief, I’ve been spending too much time around Professor Moody! The paranoid old bugger’s rubbing off on me_.

“Ah, that’s better. There’s nothing like a little magic to get the juices flowing,” Malfoy said loudly, before sneering at the Gryffindors who were watching him warily. “Of course, it seems to be beyond you rag-tag charity cases in Gryffindor.”

Ron, true of heart and predictable as the sunrise, was the first to respond. “Piss off, Malfoy!”

Malfoy’s malicious smile only widened. “Oh yes, the entire school has heard what happens when borderline squibs like you try apparition. Is it a little _draughty_ around here, Weasel?”

Hermione gripped Ron’s arm firmly. “You know, Malfoy, it’s really rather sad that you’ve made a special effort to show off for us. Well done. We’re all very impressed, I’m sure,” she said in a patient, rather patronising tone.

Harry, who had moments before been swallowing back his own anger, caught on to what Hermione was doing. “Yeah, whatever, Malfoy,” he said dismissively, half turning away and carrying on into the Great Hall. “Hey, did you guys manage to get anything more on that History of Magic essay? I was really struggling after Xxlotolagn the Unpronounceable in 1573.”

Hermione pulled Ron along with her. “Not after the defenestration of Mangodwana in 1591, no.”

Crossing the threshold, Harry noted with internal glee the look of indignant fury on Malfoy’s face, and that happy image buoyed his step to the Gryffindor table. Ron slumped into his seat and reached for the eggs, still glaring daggers across the room.

“One of these days, I’m going to give him an absolute twatting,” he snarled.

“You should have seen his face,” Harry chuckled. “Hermione, that was brilliant!”

“What was?” Ron said grumpily.

“There he was, desperate to sneer and show off and get attention, and instead he got ignored in favour of History of Magic!” Hermione said, struggling to contain her smile. Ron just grunted. “Although I’m sure you were making that up, Harry.”

“No I wasn’t.”

Hermione’s smile fell off abruptly, and she reached quickly for her bag, and only stopped when Harry laughed. “Of course I was, Hermione! You know that!”

She puffed indignantly, “I wish you wouldn’t do that to me, Harry!”

They enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in companionable silence, listening to the general hum of conversation around them, punctuated by the sounds of apparition — and the occasional scream as someone got it wrong. Several times, Harry nearly asked his friends about helping Neville in his project, but he wanted Ginny to be there as well. After all, she was the one who had pushed him into asking, and she would be eager to help, too.

He had nearly given up on her when Ginny walked into the Hall, deep in conversation with two of her room-mates. Harry caught her eye and waved her over, and she changed course to join them, dropping into the seat beside him with a groan as her bulging bag slid off her shoulder. Her room-mates took seats further down, giving the four of them curious looks.

“All right, Ginny?”

“Double Potions first up. Snape’s setting a test,” she moaned, grabbing a bowl and ladling out some porridge.

The three winced in sympathy.

“Now? Three days before the end of term? If there was any doubt, that _proves_ the man is evil,” said Ron.

“As if there was any doubt. Anyway, what was it you wanted, Harry?”

He nearly told her not to worry and he’d bring it up later, but she raised her eyebrows when he hesitated, and he decided he may as well get it over with. “I spoke to Neville last night. You were right.”

“Oh. Thought so.”

“What’s this?” asked Ron, pouring her some orange juice.

Harry pushed away his empty plate and leaned forward, keeping his voice low. “Neville’s trying to find something that will help Luna. He’s been going through the library and stuff, but I think he could do with some help.”

“That’s very thoughtful of him, but I’m sure Professor Dumbledore will come up with something soon,” said Hermione. “I thought he was looking a bit frazzled recently, but the way Professor Snape picks on him, well...”

“Yeah, Snape’s a git. Hardly news, is it? Still, you think we ought to give him a hand?” said Ron.

“Yeah. We’d be helping Neville _and_ Luna. It can’t be much fun, being stuck like she is. Ravenclaw have pretty much disowned her,” said Ginny.

“Too many books and no sense of humour, that lot,” said Ron. “Although, to be fair, she’s always been a bit bonkers, and the ‘duck’ thing is taking it to a new level.”

“That’s not very nice, Ron! I gather she’s very clever, she just looks at things… differently.” Hermione protested.

“That’s one way of putting it! I dunno, maybe she’s got, what’s it… erm… Asparagus Syndrome, or something?”

“She’s got _what_?”

“You know. Hermione, you were talking about it once. Someone who doesn’t relate well to other people or-”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ron!” Hermione threw her hands up in disgust and stormed off.

Harry and Ron watched her go.

“You did that on purpose,” Ginny said accusingly, fighting back a smile.

Ron grinned, “Yeah. Well, not quite, I couldn’t remember exactly what it was called, but it’s something like that. Hermione can’t resist biting, though, can she?”

“You are _so _going to pay for that later, though!”

Ron just gave her a great, big grin. “Yep!”

Harry and Ginny exchanged a look, and pushed back from the table in unison. “I don’t even _want_ to know!”

* * * * *

If they had thought the teachers might be winding down to Christmas and the end of term — they were wrong. Professors McGonagall and Moody worked them hard, setting homework as well, and as for History of Magic, if Professor Binns hadn’t let death stop him, then there was no way that something as trivial as Christmas would be permitted to interrupt his regimented lesson plan. The only ray of light was Professor Flitwick, picking up on the general mood and level of pre-Ball excitement, letting them have a free-for-all revision session. That glimmer of light was firmly extinguished by Professor Snape, who announced with malicious pleasure that there would be a test on poison antidotes on the last day of term.

Harry was feeling overwhelmed and the faintest bit panicky by the time classes ended for the day. He let Ron and Hermione go ahead and took the long way back to Gryffindor Tower, catching up with Ginny on the third floor by the main stairs, and she was looking much the same.

“Tough day?”

She grunted eloquently and fell in beside him.

“I won’t ask how the Potions test went, then. Now we’ve got one, too — _on Friday_.”

Ginny winced in sympathy. “Unlucky. And, if you’re like us, you’ve got masses of homework to do before then,” she said disconsolately.

“Yeah I’ve got some stuff I _have_ to have done for tomorrow, too.”

“Me, too. I’ve got a group project for Charms due on Friday, so I’m meeting up with Katherine and Colin in the library. I just need to offload some stuff,” she said, hoisting her bag higher on her shoulder. “_Ursae Majoris_.”

“Thank you, dear,” said the Fat Lady, as the portrait swung open.

The Gryffindor common room was crammed with students of all years in a sort of breathless hush as they bent over their homework, broken only by the slow crackle of the fire, the busy scratch of quill nibs, and Dean Thomas complaining from his position stuck spread-eagled to the ceiling.

The twins were clustered together with Oliver Wood and the rest of the Quidditch team, watching the show with evident enjoyment.

“Oh, come on, one of you!” Dean moaned. “Jeez, don’t all rush at once, will you. Guys? Guys?”

He was roundly ignored by everyone except by Fred and George.

“Can’t, old boy. We don’t want to get on the wrong side of a lady.”

“Especially one who can do _that_.”

“I hate you all!”

Harry walked closer. “Hey, Dean. What happened?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Ginny asked, far too innocently.

Dean glared at her from the ceiling. “Yeah, very funny, ‘cos I haven’t heard that one _at all_ before now!”

There were a few giggles from the peanut gallery.

“What happened?” Harry repeated.

“Oh, he said something to Lavender in front of Seamus,” said Fred.

“What was it?”

“Never you mind!” Dean said hurriedly.

“And _Seamus _did this?” Harry asked incredulously. Seamus and Dean had been best mates since first year, and he couldn’t think of anything that could make one hex the other.

“No, Lavender did,” Katie said, laughing gleefully, “Splatted him with something and stormed up to her dorm. I think Parvati’s in there with her, trying to calm her down.”

“Harry! Come on, mate, get me down!”

Harry looked around uncertainly, only to be stared down by Angelina Johnson and about half the Gryffindor girls.

“Don’t even think about it, Potter!”

“Don’t listen to-” A silencing spell flew up and Dean’s protests were cut off.

“Oh-kay,” said Harry. “Right. Sorry, Dean,” he added, with an apologetic glance upwards.

“Look, I need to be going,” said Ginny. “Meet you back here just before seven?”

“Sure. Look, are you sure you want to do this, if you’ve got loads on?”

She gave him a small smile, “I will if you will. I’ll see how we get on with our Charms project, and if we’re not done then maybe we’ll have to cut it short a little.”

Harry looked around the room. “If you run into Neville, tell him we’ll help, but it might have to wait a few days until the end of term.”

“Sure.”

With that, they headed up to their dorms. Harry offloaded most of his textbooks from his bag and instead grabbed his half-finished Herbology essay and the reference book he’d picked up from the library. Ginny had gone by the time he returned downstairs, but Ron waved to him from a small table in the corner next to the Quidditch team.

“All right, Ron? Where’s Hermione?”

“Library, where else?” he grunted. “Herbology?”

“Yeah. I’ve still got another eighteen inches on the habitat and uses of St. John’s Wort.”

Ron winced. “Oof! You should have gone with the Dragon’s Breath Lily.”

They set to work. Harry was making decent progress when there came a brief yodel of terror and Dean Thomas fell off the ceiling, landing in a bean bag that had been handily left underneath him. Fred clicked a stopwatch and nodded approvingly.

“Nice! We’re going to have to speak to Lavender about that sticking charm.”

“You’re all bastards!” Dean snapped sulkily, before slinking off to the dorms.

“Indeed.” Fred noticed Harry watching, and his eyes lit up. “Now, to broach a delicate subject, Harry, old boy, we can’t help but notice that you’ve taken to disappearing off with our favourite sister on an alarmingly-regular basis. Anything you’d care to share?”

“Not really, no. And she’s your only sister,” Harry pointed out.

“She still got the vote from five out of six Weasley brothers,” said George.

“Only five?”

George scowled. “Percy’s a git.”

“Yeah, we didn’t ask him. Because he’s a git,” Fred added.

“Oh.”

“Anyway, stop changing the subject,” said Fred.

“Yeah, Percy’s git-dom is well-known and established,” said George.

“Apparently he’s taking Ginny to the ball,” Ron said idly, turning another page in his text book and inadvertently scratching the end of his nose with the wrong end of his quill. “As if we needed any more proof that he’s lost his mind over this Triwizard Tournament thing.”

The twins’ heads turned slowly to leer at him with unholy glee. “_Reeeeeeeally_?”

“Err...”

There were a few ‘Aww’s from the girls and some good-natured grins. The twins, of course, went for a more cringe-inducing reaction.

“Oh, goody!” said George, sniffing back fake tears. “I’ll tell Mum to start planning the wedding.”

“I _love_ a good wedding, me,” said Fred, clasping his hands to his bosom and looking heavenward, “_Especially_ if there’s cake.”

“Bugger off!”

“Now now, Harry, there’s no need for that. We just want you to take good care of our darling, cutesy-wutesy wittle pwincess of a sister, that’s all,” said George, fluttering his eyelashes outrageously.

“If she heard you say that, she’d hex your wobbly bits off.”

“Hiding behind her skirts, Mr. Potter? For shame!”

“Wouldn’t you? I’ve seen her Bat-Bogey hex, and it’s not a pretty sight.”

“He’s not wrong, she would hex you _so hard _for that,” Katie pointed out.

“Give him a rest, you two,” Ron sighed, “I’m sure the fit of insanity will pass soon.”

“Gee, thanks, Ron.”

“There is a certain form to these things, Harry. You can’t just walk in and sweep her off her feet, you know,” George said pompously.

Angelina snorted loudly. “Like _you’d_ know, you plonker!”

“Hey, let Harry learn from our sage advice,” said Fred.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t want Ginny not to benefit from your suffering, would you?” added George.

Fred made a rude gesture to his twin in reply, and Angelina just rolled her eyes.

“Idiots!”

“You have to make sure that you bring her flowers and chocolates, young Harry-kins, to worship at the temple of her beauty. Red roses and Honeyduke’s Reserve Cauldron Selection, if you want my advice,” George said, resuming his unwanted commentary.

“But not too many chocolates, or she’ll end up with a big bum.”

There was a slight pause while George considered this. “Are you _sure_ you should be asking him to think about our sister’s bum, dear brother?”

Harry immediately started to think about the recent subject of the conversation. Trying not to was a bit like trying not to think about the pink hippogriff. The poorly-stifled laughter from Katie and Alicia wasn’t helping, either.

“Hmm… yes, good point. Red roses and Honeyduke’s No-fat, No-sugar Daydream Bon-bons, then. You can’t go wrong there, I think.”

“You want to shut up about now, or you’ll be going to the Ball on your own!” Angelina said firmly.

“Shutting up now,” Fred said hastily, drawing a finger across his lips.

Harry growled in frustration and thrust his nose deeper into his books, hoping they’d go away if he ignored them hard enough. _And… and… oh, God… Professor Trelawney on a cold day! Professor Trelawney on a cold day! Damn it, stop thinking about it! Professor Trelawney on a cold day!_

He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he missed Hermione coming back in until she leaned over and peered at the textbook in front of him.

“Herbology homework, Harry? What have you got there?”

“Hmm?” He looked up guiltily, his head full of biology instead.

Hermione nodded approvingly. “Oh yes, that does look very pert-”

He let out a startled whimper and bolted for the dorms.

“-inent?” Hermione trailed off, watching him go. “Was it something I said?”

* * * * *

After dinner, Harry cautiously crept back into the common room about quarter to seven. Ginny was already there and waiting, talking to Colin Creevey, but the twins were also camped on one of the sofas with Katie, Angelina and Alicia. When they caught sight of him, there was some poorly-stifled laughter, and Fred batted his eyelashes and blew kisses at him. Flushing, Harry put his head down and ignored them. Colin saw him coming and sidled off, leaving him with Ginny.

“Hi, Harry!” she said brightly. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” he muttered, not quite looking at her.

There was a louder burst of laughter from behind him, and he didn’t dare turn around. Ginny looked up, though, and her back stiffened.

“Harry?” she said sweetly. He was immediately on his guard.

“Yes, Ginny?”

“Judging from the looks on my beloved brothers’ faces, they’ve found out about us going to the ball together.”

“Err… yeah.”

She made a face. “Teasing? Gleeful innuendo? Prancing around like pillocks, making kissy faces?”

“Well… sort of.” Harry shrugged uncomfortably, and she let out a long-suffering sigh.

“Excuse me while I explain a few simple facts of life to my brothers. Or, more like, a few simple facts of _instant bloody death_!”

Wand in hand, she stormed towards her twin brothers. They took one look at her and bolted, but almost as soon as they were on their feet, there were two flashes of light, and they fell full-length in front of the portrait door, wrapped head to foot in ropes. Behind them, Angelina and Alicia nonchalantly blew the remaining wisps of spell-light from the ends of their wands.

“Mercy! We surrender!” the twins falsettoed, squirming against their bonds.

“You’ll be bloody lucky,” Ginny snarled. “Harry, go on ahead. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

“Harry!” gasped George.

“Mate!” Fred added, looking beseechingly up at him.

“_Don’t leave us like this_!”

Harry thought about it for a brief second. _Never mind the sodding bon-bons, it’s revenge that is sweet but not fattening_. “Don’t worry, guys, I’m sure your ‘darling, cutesy-wutesy wittle pwincess of a sister’ won’t do anything too permanent,” he said, stepping over them.

Ginny let out a growl at the description that was, frankly, terrifying, but the portrait swung shut behind him before the shouting started.

* * * * *

Ginny arrived a few minutes late but with a spring in her step and a smile on her face. Harry decided it was best not to ask. Instead, they warmed up with a few repeats of the previous night’s exercises before Ginny began to introduce turns and other simple moves to expand their repertoire. When he got in a tangle or tripped over his feet, she simply offered a few quiet words of encouragement or advice, waited a few bars, and they started again. It came as something of a surprise when Professor McGonagall pointed out that curfew was fast approaching.

“You have prompted me to consider whether I should roll out dancing lessons for all my Gryffindors,” she added. “No doubt even those who already know how would benefit from some practise, but given the current situation, I think I shall wait until next week when the term is over and attention spans are a little longer.” She fixed them with a penetrating look, “I shall expect you both to attend and to lead by example. Make sure you’re smartly turned out for the Ball, and I dare say you’ll surprise a few people — maybe even yourselves.”

As they made their way back to the tower, Harry’s thoughts turned to his robes, still in the bottom of his trunk where he’d left them. _Maybe I should hang them up, dust them off a little_. And that brought another thought.

“Err… Ginny? You do _have_ robes for the Ball, right?”

“Yeah, Mum got me some when, erm…” She trailed off, looking rather red, and Harry tried not to think too hard about the conversation that must have entailed. The twins’ over-wrought mockery sprang immediately to mind. “I feel a bit bad for Ron about that, actually,” she continued. “One of the benefits of being a girl, I suppose. I don’t know _where_ she found those things Ron got, but I think they might have been Uncle Bilious’ at some point.”

“From how long ago?” Harry couldn’t resist asking.

“I think you mean, from which century,” Ginny corrected him.

He didn’t laugh. “I guess they were what she could get, but...”

“Yeah.”

When they walked back in to the common room, Ginny was immediately pounced on by Colin and Katherine, so Harry went up to his dorm room. Opening his trunk, he had to shove aside quite a jumble of clothes, books, and knick-knacks before he found the brown paper parcel containing his robes. He shook them out and held them up; luckily, other than some well-engrained creases, they seemed to have survived four months of neglect pretty well. _Maybe I can get them pressed, somehow? Or ask the house-elves_?

“Huh. Practising making yourself look lovely for my sister, are you?”

Harry looked up to see Ron watching him from the doorway, a disgruntled look on his face.

“Ron-”

The big redhead just shrugged and went and sat on his bed. “Not that I blame you. I mean, you’ve got to get up there in front of everyone.”

“Yeah. I thought I should at least make sure they were clean, you know?” He took a deep breath. “What about yours?”

“What about them? Bloody things, I’d be embarrassed to even use them for dusters,” he moaned.

“Maybe you should get them cleaned up,” Harry suggested.

“What’s the point? I mean… oh, damn it, Harry, why can’t I just have something go my way for once? Hermione’s going to laugh her head off when she sees me. I don’t blame her.”

“The point is, last time I saw them you were using them to cover Pigwidgeon’s cage. Hermione will understand if they’re a bit out of date, but I really doubt she’ll be so understanding if you turn up in robes covered in owl crap and smelling like dead mice! Ignore them all you like, they won’t go away or get clean by themselves.”

Ron gave him a half-hearted glare and swore under his breath before getting to his feet and jerking open his trunk. A few items of clothing and Quidditch equipment were lobbed onto his bed before he straightened up, the hated maroon robes clutched in one fist. They looked no better than the last time Harry had seen them.

“Hold them up for a minute, will you?”

It wasn’t a pretty sight. There was, indeed, evidence of Pigwidgeon’s excitable nature down one side, and being put away damp had meant that the mould had taken a firm hold on the lace ruff and cuffs, which were mottled brown and black.

“Oh, bloody hell! Maybe I should just burn them — they’ll let me go in my school robes, won’t they?”

“You want to risk it?”

“Gee, let me think about that for a second. _Hell, yes_!”

“I was thinking the house elves might be able to help us. Someone like… _Dobby_!”

Harry snapped his fingers, and an instant later a little blur attacked his knees.

“Harry Potter, sir! Oh, the great Harry Potter sends for Dobby!”

Harry laughed, and tried to gently untangle the enthusiastic little elf. “Hello, Dobby, it’s good to see you.”

“It is good to be seeing you, too. Harry Potter, sir! And Harry Potter, sir’s, Wheezy!” Dobby reluctantly let go of Harry’s knees and gazed adoring up at him with tennis ball-sized eyes. “What can Dobby be doing for yous?”

Harry held out his robes. “The Yule Ball is coming up very soon, Dobby, and I was wondering if it was possible to get my robes cleaned before then?”

“Of course, sir! Dobby will take Harry Potter, sir’s, robeses himself to the laundry elves! They will be back fresh, fresh, fresh!”

“That’s great, thank you very much, Dobby. Now, I have a bit of a bigger challenge for you, too.”

Ron held up his robes, and Dobby looked uncertainly between him and Harry.

“Dobby is thanking Harry Potter’s Wheezy, but we is having plenty of dusters already,” he said eventually, pulling on his long ears anxiously.

Ron flushed, and Harry hurried on. “They’re not dusters, Dobby. Look, Ron needs his dress robes cleaned, as well. Do you think the laundry elves could do this for him, too?”

“I will be seeing if they can clean Harry Potter’s Wheezy’s dress, too,” Dobby said at last.

Ron looked like he was about to explode. “And if they can get rid of the lace and make it look less like a dress and more like robes, that’d be brilliant,” he said through gritted teeth.

Dobby pulled harder at his ears. “Harry Potter’s Wheezy wouldn’t prefer tragic laundry accidents with fire and water buffalo?”

“They’re what I’ve got, damn it!” Ron burst out, and the little elf cringed.

“Ron!”

Ron scowled, but took a deep breath. “Sorry, Dobby,” he said after a moment.

“Dobby will see what he can be doing,” Dobby said at last. “H-E.P. is one thing but alterationses is not something Dobby can be doing himself.”

Harry frowned. “H-E.P.?”

“Don’t ask,” Ron said hurriedly. “_Really _don’t ask.”

“Oh. Well, thank you very much, Dobby.”

“Harry Potter, sir, and his Wheezy is welcome,” Dobby said, taking the garments from them and vanishing with a small pop.

“Reckon he’ll do it?”

“Dunno, but at least they’ll be clean.”

“Huh. Well, I was going to ask if you’d finished that Herbology essay yet? And I’ve got that Transfiguration one mostly done, if you need a look.”

Harry felt his shoulders slump. “Transfiguration. Damn it, there’s always something else, isn’t there?”

Ron grinned, “Come on, you may as well get it over with — and there’s still Potions to study for.”

“Oh, great. Things just keep getting better.”

* * * * *

  


* * *


	2. Fit the Second

* * * * *

Herbology the next morning meant venturing out into a hard frost where breath froze and plumed in great clouds and feet threatened to skate treacherously on the worn flagstones that led across the white-rimed lawns to the greenhouses. The greenhouses were, thankfully, heated, but that wasn’t the case for the Care of Magical Creatures class that followed, and even the best-dressed students had chattering teeth by the time Hagrid took pity on them and sent them back indoors early for lunch.

They defrosted over lunch before a lesson in the stifling, soporific heat of the Divination tower, and the day finished with their final Defence Against the Dark Arts class of the year. Professor Moody was sitting at his desk reading, although his magical eye seemed to be watching them instead, turning occasionally to scan the corners – and even, disturbingly, turning right around to see behind him. Harry, Ron, and Hermione noted Crabbe and Goyle sitting on the left-hand side of the room with a desk between them, so they immediately took the furthest side and kept their wits about them. Not only was Professor Moody liable to announce the start of class by flinging spells around unannounced, there was no sign of Draco Malfoy.

Susan Bones and Ernie McMillan hurried in just as the clock struck, and Moody got to his feet and waved his wand, shutting the door behind them. “Hmph. Time to get started. Abbott?”

“Present, Professor,” Hannah piped up.

“Bones?”

Professor Moody had reached ‘Goyle’ in his roll call when there was a flash of light from between Crabbe and Goyle accompanied at the same instant by the sudden, thundering blare of a foghorn. Almost before they could blink, Moody had his wand out and pointed at… a white ferret, cowering in confusion on the desktop. The students froze.

A slow, rather cruel, smile crept over Moody’s face. “So. Thought you’d be late to my class, did you?” he said softly, his magical eye still zipping around in paranoia. “Thought maybe you could sneak up on old Moody, see if he’s gone soft? See if he’s slipping, and maybe he’s letting his guard down?”

Ron and Harry risked exchanging a look. “Malfoy?” Harry mouthed silently. Ron, who would normally be crowing at seeing Malfoy cut down to size, could only nod in wordless shock.

The click of Moody’s heel was accompanied by the heavy thump of his wooden leg as he bore down on the unfortunate ferret, exuding all the menace of the ultimate predator. Click… _thump_… click… _thump_… click.

Moody leaned down, his wand still trained on the quivering animal. “Well, I haven’t lasted this long by being careless. You remember that, boy. You can tell your daddy and his friends that, too. I’ll be coming for them when I’m done, here.”

He straightened abruptly and, with an irritated flick of his wand, Malfoy appeared, sprawled across the desk, and promptly fell onto the floor, scrabbling away from the old man in terror. With a final sneer, Moody whirled and stomped back to his desk, throwing himself into his chair and pulling out his hip flask.

“So. As demonstrated, you must be on your guard at all times. That means even when you think you’re somewhere safe.” He shook his head and took a swig from his flask, “The number of good witches and wizards that thought they shut out the world when their front door closed behind them… well, they found out the hard way. Don’t let it be you. There are things you can do, traps you can set, alarms you can have… all of it will at least give you time, and time is the most precious thing of all.” He grinned humourlessly, and swung around to face the blackboard.

“Step one! You’re awake! You’re alerted! You’re _aware_!” The word ‘Aware’ scratched itself onto the board in white chalk. “Step two! Abbott! What is it?”

His chair swung around again, and Hannah shrank back in her seat. “Um… well...”

“Come on, girl, what do you do next? “ Moody barked. “Hmm? Yes? No? Too slow! You’re dead! Nott! What do you do next?”

“Find out what has alerted you?” Nott said coolly.

“Exactly!” The word ‘Assess’ was scribbled beneath ‘Aware’. “And once you’ve assessed the threat – what next? Finnegan?”

“Err… fight, Professor?”

“Too Gryffindor by half, but only half right. You _act_, boys and girls.” Moody steepled his hands under his chin, while the chalk squeaked away behind him. “Fight. Flight. Fright. You have three options. We’ll discount the last one. Standing there, wetting your knickers, or trying to hide your head under the blankets will most likely get you killed. Fight to win. Fight to get away. And that leads to your last option; flight. If you’re outclassed or outnumbered – get away, get help. You kids should consider that your number one choice, for now – until you’re older, anyway. That goes for everyone, regardless of age or occupation. Yes, Potter, even Aurors.” 

Harry blanched. He had been half-thinking it, and either Moody had plucked it straight out of his head, or it was an incredible guess. 

“You think I haven’t done the old backyard steeplechase in my time, when the curses are flying and there’s an anti-disapparition jinx in the air? Well, I have – more times than I care to remember. If you’re outnumbered or outclassed, get away. _Survive_. You’re no use to anyone dead, least of all yourself.”

The silence when Moody finished speaking was profound. None of them even dared move until there was a loud thump and a rattle of pages as a textbook flew onto Professor Moody’s desk and opened itself. Most of them flinched.

“Page three hundred and eighty-seven,” he said in a deathly quiet voice. “Perimeter warning charms. You have ten minutes, then we’ll see what you’ve learned. Go.”

The rest of the class passed in silence. The students were even reluctant to speak during the interactive parts of the lesson, and when the bell finally went, there was a universal rush for the door.

Dean Thomas summed it up on the way back to Gryffindor Tower. “Moody may be the coolest teacher in the whole school, but I don’t mind admitting that he just scared the life out of me!”

Lavender let out a frightened squeak of agreement and huddled closer to Seamus, who swallowed and put a comforting arm around her, his usual humour absent. 

“I think I need a small break from Professor Moody while I change my shorts and work up the nerve for next term,” Ron agreed. “I mean, the Amazing, Bouncing Ferret making a comeback would normally be hilarious, but that went a bit far. Still, last class for the year, so cross that off the list of things to worry about.”

“Oh? So you’re not going to do the homework essay he set?” Hermione asked sweetly.

Ron shuddered. “First thing on the to-do list, just as soon as term is over.”

Harry had to smile. “And since when have you had a to-do list, Ron?”

That got a much-needed laugh from all of them.

* * * * *

Back in the common room, they all trooped up to their dorms, emptying out their bags and gathering up their homework instead. Dean and Seamus preferred to camp on their beds and work from there, but Neville followed Harry and Ron downstairs and went straight out the portrait.

_Tomorrow_, thought Harry. _I’ll get this out of the way and then I’ve got at least a week. Neville will have to hold on a little longer_.

Hermione was waiting by their usual table, and immediately took charge. “So, homework triage. Charms we’re OK on. History of Magic – Harry?”

“Mostly done, I just need a few more inches and to make sure it makes sense.”

“Ron?”

“I’m about halfway there, I think.”

“OK, then. Transfiguration?”

“Done, thank Merlin.”

Ron stared. “Merlin’s beard, really?”

“I’ll take that as a ‘No’ from you, then, Ron. And finally – Potions?”

Harry sighed. “Potions. Oh, goody. My favourite. I guess I can’t put it off any longer.”

“If I took one of the poisons at the start of the test, do you think Snape would let me off the rest?” Ron asked hopefully.

Harry snorted with laughter. “Are you kidding? After he’d stopped laughing, he’d interrupt your funeral just so he could give you a ‘T’ one last time.”

“That’s not funny!”

Harry and Ron exchanged an amused look, but kept quiet.

Sorting out his History of Magic essay didn’t take long, and then he could dive into his Potions textbook while Ron still scribbled industriously about the unending goblin rebellions. Maybe half an hour later, Ron set his quill aside and flexed his aching fingers.

“That’ll have to do. I’ll be glad if I never hear about revolting goblins ever again.”

“Careful how you say that,” Harry said.

“Transfiguration, next. How the heck can you be finished that one already, Harry? And you’ve been disappearing off with Ginny for hours on end. And no, I don’t want to know,” said Ron, with a shudder.

“Know what?” Harry said, resenting the insinuation. “You don’t want to know about me and Ginny, Ron? Going off all alone, just me and her – and Professor McGonagall?” 

“What?”

“She’s been teaching me to _dance_, you absolute helmet! Now, give it a rest and maybe I won’t ask what _you’ve_ been doing in those extra free hours that you haven’t been spending on your homework!”

Hermione turned very pink but kept her eyes fixed on her Potions textbook, and Ron’s ears were like a lighthouse beacon, but Harry’s pointed observation was thoroughly ignored.

Relative peace returned to the common room until it was broken by Cormac McLaggan apparating in with his forearm coming out of his forehead. Cormac looked wildly around, forehead arm flapping, then looked down at the stump of his left elbow and let out a long sigh.

“Damn!”

Slump-shouldered, he dragged his heels out of the tower and presumably to the Hospital Wing. Shaking his head, Ron watched him go.

“Well, I’ll give him marks for persistence, if nothing else.” He slammed his textbook shut with some satisfaction and rolled his shoulders. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Are you guys ready for dinner?”

Harry was happy to push his own textbook away. “Sure.”

“I’ll be down in a few minutes, I just want to finish this section,” said Hermione, so they left her to it. ‘A few minutes’ when Hermione was engrossed could be more than an hour.

When the reached the foot of the stairs, they heard the rasp of an angry quack somewhere in the Entrance Hall and exchanged a look. “That must be Luna. Come on!”

Luna was cowering in the far corner of the Entrance Hall between two suits of armour. Lounging insouciantly against one of the doors to the Great Hall, Draco Malfoy twitched his wand and sent something shooting across the room at her. There were a number of them littering the floor, and Harry bent and picked one up. It was a duck pellet, and his anger began to burn.

“Cut it out, Malfoy,” he said sharply.

The blond boy made an exaggerated show of yawning. _Flick._ “No, I don’t think I shall. This is quite entertaining.”

Luna hissed at him angrily, but didn’t step out of her rather inadequate refuge.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ron snarled.

“I’m experimenting on the lower orders. I thought I’d see if Featherbrain, here, can still act like a witch and not some half-breed freak. It seems not, but then she is distressingly inbred to start with. What’s the matter, Lovegood? _Chicken_?!”

Another duck pellet pinged off Luna’s shoulder, making her flinch, and Ron started forward with a low growl until Harry grabbed his arm. There was too many people about, and more and more students were gathering every minute. Some looked interested in seeing how the confrontation would end, some were looking disgusted at the Slytherin’s antics, but most of the newcomers were still trying to work out what was going on.

“Wow, Malfoy, I’m actually impressed,” said Harry. “I mean, I didn’t think you could get any lower, and yet somehow you’ve managed it. You could hit a snake below the belt, couldn’t you?!”

Malfoy smiled. “Are you accusing me of _fowl play_?”

Hufflepuff’s tall, sixth-year Quidditch keeper pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “All right, Malfoy, either get in the hall and eat or make yourself scarce, but leave Lovegood alone.”

Another Hufflepuff sixth-year, a girl, put an arm around Luna and was talking to her quietly. Luna quacked furiously in response. 

“Says who, Fielding? You’re not even a Prefect.”

Cedric Diggory joined Fielding, a look of anger and distaste on his face, but with his wand still in his pocket. “No, but I am – and I’m telling you exactly the same. Leave her alone!.”

“Well, as much as I hate to _duck _a challenge…!”

“Oh, good grief, someone hex him for the puns alone!” said a familiar voice. It was Ginny, her wand out and a fierce look on her face. 

Malfoy looked her up and down, his lip curling. “And speaking of poor breeding, it’s the Weaselette. In comparison, the mutant duck-freak is almost an improvement.”

“Malfoy, shut your face and get moving, or it’ll be detention!” Cedric said sharply.

“Maybe you should try it some time, Malfoy, it might change your perspective,” Ginny spat angrily. “Oh wait, you _have_ tried it already. How did that work out for you, ferret-face?” 

There was some rather nervous giggles from the crowd, although some were starting to back away, sensing an impending fight and wanting to get out of the line of fire.

“And he tried it again just this afternoon, in fact,” Ron added smugly.

“What’s this?” said Fielding.

“Oh, the blond ponce, here, thought he’d be clever and apparate into Moody’s classroom this afternoon,” Ron said in a carrying voice.

Malfoy flushed angrily. “Shut up, Weasley!”

Ron was grinning like the kneazle that had got the pygmy puff. “Of course, Moody hasn’t lasted this long without taking a few precautions, so when Malfoy made his grand entrance, he reappeared as Malfoy the Mustelid again!”

There was a few confused giggles, from the tension in the air more than anything, before someone asked the obvious question. “What the hell’s a mustelid?”

“Among other things – a ferret,” said a new voice. Harry looked back to see Hermione approaching, her wand drawn and down by her side. 

There was a momentary, stunned silence, and then the sniggering started, quickly breaking down into general laughter. 

“_Again_?” Fielding choked. “Really, Malfoy, once is bad luck, but twice is time to admit you have a problem!” 

There was a roar of laughter, and Malfoy, thoroughly enraged, went to raise his wand but instantly found himself staring down at least a dozen others. Teeth gritted, he spun on his heel and stalked into the Great Hall.

“All right, everyone, settle it down and get those wands away, or I’ll start docking points. Tammy?”

The Hufflepuff girl with Luna looked up at him. “It’s all right, Cedric, I’ll look after her. Come on, Luna, come and sit with me and the girls.” She led Luna into the hall, and Cedric nodded approvingly. 

“Cool. Come on, you lot, the show’s over.”

The backlog of students began to file into the Great Hall, still talking and laughing about the bizarre showdown. Soon, there was just Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione left.

“Ron, how did you know what a mustelid is?” Hermione asked, tucking her wand away.

Ron grinned. “Well, after last time, I thought I’d have a few synonyms handy – and it rhymes! Anything to take the little git down a peg or two!”

Hermione gaped at him, and said, “Oh, Ron!” in a small, wavering voice.

Harry leaned over and whispered into Ginny’s ear, “I think that’s our cue to get out of here before something sickening happens!”

She grabbed his hand, and they hustled into the Great Hall, trying to suppress their laughter. “Who would have thought that the way to Hermione’s heart would be through a thesaurus?” she giggled.

Harry thought about that for a moment. “Just about everyone, actually.”

* * * * *

Consulting with Ginny over dinner, they cancelled that night’s appointment with Professor McGonagall. They both had too much homework left to do and not enough time to do it. Even with the added time that allowed, Harry still spent most of History of Magic the next morning furtively studying the Potions textbook on his lap. Charms went off without a hitch, and if they didn’t have Potions looming in the afternoon, he would have walked out of Transfiguration a happy man.

In the event, Harry felt reasonably confident about the written half of the test, and knew that he’d passed the practical. Not everyone was so lucky. Harry, Seamus, and Ron had to help Neville back to Gryffindor Tower, pausing every now and then for Neville to regret his antidote brewing skills.

“What sort of nutter is he,” Ron said for about the fifth time. “I mean, yeah, you’ve got to test them, but to poison the whole class?”

“Through the _test papers_, no less,” said Harry. “It takes an evil mind to think of something like that.”

Seamus waited for Neville to empty his stomach into the pail he was carrying yet again before replying. “_Scourgify_. Well, you know by now he’s an evil git. He’s _always _been an evil git, so he has.”

“’It’ll wear off in a few hours’,” Ron quoted angrily. “Yeah, what a great start to the holidays for Neville!”

Shivering, Neville just groaned damply and resumed walking.

They got him back to the dorms and propped him up in the bathroom with the loo in easy reach. “I might as well stay with him,” Seamus said philosophically. “Someone should.”

“Go on, I’ll be all right,” Neville groaned. “No-one wants to see this.”

“You sure you’ll be all right, mate?” Seamus asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’ll just be in the dorm. Shout if you need anything, yeah?”

“Thanks, guys.”

Harry and Ron went back downstairs, but the unpleasant end to Potions had thoroughly killed their holiday mood. Things were bouncing in the common room, however, with students happily celebrating the end of term and the coming Christmas. Someone had produced a wireless which was playing Christmas tunes, there were bowls of sweets on most of the tables – the sudden transformation of a second-year into a large canary suggested that they were provided by the twins and should be regarded as booby-trapped – and Alicia was walking around with a garland of tinsel around her neck, directing the younger students in decorating the common room.

“How is he?” Hermione asked as they joined her at their usual table.

“He’s like a human fountain, how do you think?” Ron said with his usual tact. Luckily, before Hermione could retort, the twins crept up behind them and clapped hands on their shoulders, making them all jump.

“Kids! You’ve been withholding crucial information from us!” said George

“How could you! Something so important, too!” Fred added.

“Get off!” Ron shrugged Fred’s hand off. “What’s so important?”

“Why, the reappearance of the Amazing, Bouncing Ferret, of course!” said Fred.

“Imagine how we felt, hearing it on the grapevine rather that from our own flesh and blood who saw it in person!” George said in a tragic voice.

“What’s the matter,” Fred sniffed, prodding Ron sharply in the ribs. “Don’t you love us any more?”

“_Ow_, bugger off! Look, it was brilliant the first time, but yesterday… well, yesterday kinda wasn’t.” 

“Yeah,” Harry agreed uncomfortably. “Malfoy’s a git who almost deserved it, but Moody went nuts. I mean, he came off as a bit unhinged.”

“He’s always come off as a bit unhinged. Probably because he is,” George said dismissively. “That’s why he’s still alive.”

“The clue is in the name,” Fred added. “_Mad_-Eye.”

“You weren’t there,” Hermione said quietly. “He scared Malfoy, all right, but he frightened the life out of everyone else, too. No-one was laughing.”

“But then you announced it to half the school – and not us!” Fred said. “I’m hurt!”

Ron snorted. “Any faint sympathy I might have had for him ended when he decided to take it out on Luna. What a twat!”

The twins nodded sagely, then grinned. “Details! Details, details, details!”

Harry had to laugh at their enthusiasm, and together, the three of them recounted Malfoy’s failed attempt to show off.

“I have an idea,” Fred chortled gleefully when they’d finished. 

“Really? A suitably devious and cunning idea?”

“Absolutely. But! We’re going to need some help from a guardian angel. To work!”

The twins struck heroic poses, and sprang away like ballet dancers, vanishing as they landed with a loud _crack!_. 

“Mad buggers,” Ron snorted, then grabbed his throat. His voice had come out in a deep, vibrating bass.

“Ron! You sound like Barry White!” said Hermione, in Professor McGonagall’s severe tones, although Professor McGonagall didn’t blush like that.

Harry clapped a hand to his forehead. “They got us while we were distracted,” he groaned. “We should have known!” He wasn’t especially surprised to find he sounded like Gilderoy Lockhart. 

* * * * *

If he was expecting sympathy from Ginny when she came in, windblown and tousle-haired after Herbology, he was sorely disappointed. She insisted on dragging him over to all her friends so they could all giggle over his new-found vocal charm. Normally he would have hated it, but there was something about the party atmosphere and the glow of happiness in her eyes that meant it wasn’t so bad, after all.

The party continued in the Great Hall, where the house elves had laid on a tremendous meal, both as a celebration of the end of term and a farewell to the students leaving Hogwarts for the Christmas break. Most years, the school would be nearly deserted, but this year the students taking the Express would be almost exclusively the younger students – except for Ginny, Harry realised abruptly. She was a short distance along the table with the other Gryffindor third-years, all talking excitedly. She would be pretty much on her own for the next few weeks, and he resolved to make sure she wasn’t completely abandoned. 

While the remains of the main course were being cleared away, Professor Dumbledore rose to his feet at the high table and called for quiet.

“Another marvellous feast to celebrate the end of term, and to farewell those of you returning home for the Christmas holidays,” he began cheerfully. “A brief reminder of the arrangements for those of you returning to London tomorrow; please ensure your trunks are packed and down in your common rooms by 9am, and that you are here in the Great Hall by 9:45 at the latest. Coaches will take you to Hogsmeade Station at 10 o’clock, and the Express will depart at 11 o’clock sharp.” Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled happily. “As a _further_ reminder, the usual restrictions on using magic out of school still apply – and yes, that does also include apparition.”

There was laughter from the students, and a few groans as well. 

“Well, I shall not delay your dessert any longer. Whether you are remaining here at Hogwarts or heading home to be with your families, I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas, and look forward to seeing you all in the New Year.”

With that, Dumbledore sat down. Even as tarts and trifles and steamed puddings and other desserts popped into existence on the tables, the teachers rose as one and levelled their wands threateningly at him. Unperturbed, Dumbledore cleared his throat and got back to his feet.

“But before you tuck into your desserts, there is one additional point my colleagues would like to raise. For those students remaining at Hogwarts over the Christmas break, for the next 48 hours, apparition is entirely at your own risk. Neither they, nor Madam Pomfrey, will be available to sort out any apparition-related misfortunes. Given their workload over the last month or so, I find this quite understandable and would ask for your cooperation during this time. Thank you.”

With that, he resumed his seat and reached for a bowl of sherry trifle and, after a moment’s hesitation, the teachers returned to their seats and the party atmosphere could reassert itself. 

After a second helping of ice cream, Ron, Hermione, and Harry joined the slow stream of Gryffindors heading back to the Tower. Neville was sitting in an armchair by the fire, looking pale but a lot happier than before.

“All right, mate?” Ron asked him.

“Yeah, I feel loads better, now,” said Neville. “I haven’t thrown up in nearly an hour.”

“I don’t suppose you feel like eating anything, do you?” asked Hermione. “We could run down to the kitchens or something, if you’d like?”

“Thanks, Hermione, but I’ll be all right. I’ve had a few of the nibbles here in the common room,” he said, taking a sweet out of a nearby bowl. Harry opened his mouth to warn him, but was too late. There was a puff of yellow, and a large canary stared back at them and let out a shocked chirp.

Hermione’s nostrils flared. “I am going to _kill _those brothers of yours, Ron!”

For once in his life, Ron did the sensible thing and kept his mouth shut while she stormed out into the castle to deliver retribution. He watched her go, then shook his head. “C’mon, let’s go up and get changed,” he said. “It’s now absolutely and definitely the holidays, and I refuse to wear school robes a second longer. Back in a minute, Neville.”

Harry followed him upstairs and, on entering the dorms, he spied his dress robes hanging on the door handle of his wardrobe, looking pristine and freshly-pressed. There was a squeak from beside him, and Harry grinned. Ron was staring, open-mouthed, at the robes hanging on his own wardrobe. There was a loud ‘pop’ behind them.

“Hi, Dobby. Thanks for doing this, I really appreciate it,” Harry said, turning to speak to the little elf.

Dobby’s chest puffed out with pride. “Harry Potter, sir, and his Wheezy is most welcome, Harry Potter, sir!” he squeaked.

“These aren’t my robes,” Ron said in a stunned voice.

The smile vanished from his face and Dobby looked panicked. “Dobby is sorry, but the elveses is doing their best!”

“Dobby… I don’t even recognise them. I mean, yes, they’re still maroon, but they actually look like, like… _robes_!” he said intelligently.

And they did. The frilly, discoloured lace was gone, and the front had been significantly re-cut to hide the damage. The result still wasn’t pretty, but it was significantly more modern – and significantly less girly. 

“Dobby… come here, please,” said Ron, in a carefully controlled voice.

Dobby gave Harry a terrified look and edged slowly closer to Ron. Harry was a little uncertain about this himself, but he needn’t have worried. Ron simply knelt down and pulled the little elf into a hug.

The touching tableau didn’t last long. They heard voices approaching, then feet carelessly tramping in the corridor, and as soon as the door handle turned, Dobby was gone. Seamus and Dean walked in, singing a Christmas carol, and Ron straightened up abruptly and went back to his bed as if nothing had happened.

Harry pulled off his school robes and pitched them into a laundry bin, changing into a sweater and jeans before taking his dress robes and hanging them carefully inside the wardrobe. He looked over to see Ron doing the same.

“Ron?”

“Yes, mate?”

Harry grinned, “I’m going to tell Hermione about that hug.”

“Git! You bloody aren’t!” Ron grinned back at him, looking around for a moment and then grabbing his pillow and tossing it at him. Harry caught it and returned fire, only to hit Dean, and soon all four boys were pummelling each other and laughing their heads off.

Somehow, a pillow fight was a perfect end to the day.

* * * * *


	3. Fit the Third

* * * * *

Draco Malfoy awoke sandy-eyed and dry-mouthed, and with a headache gnawing at him that was probably down to Lucian Bole ‘reinforcing’ the butterbeer punch at the end-of-term party with something a little stronger. And, if he was honest, also the port served after dinner in the common room. And the brandy, as well. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, although the dry horrors and pressing need to wee made it look a little less attractive about now.

Grumpily, he dragged his fingers through his hair, threw back the covers, and rolled out of bed. He went to reach for his wand on his bedside table, and froze. In its place there was a black, velvet cushion bearing a small, white leather collar encrusted with rhinestones, with a note pinned to it written in flowing script. He lifted it and read: ‘Your new outfit for the Ball.’

The denizens of the Slytherin dungeon were awoken by a sudden scream of fury.

* * * * *

Harry awoke distressingly early, despite the party that had continued well past midnight. His room-mates were showing no signs of life, barring Ron’s steady snores and Dean’s quieter accompaniment, but for whatever reason, his mind was fully alert and bursting with energy to be up and doing. After a futile attempt to drift back off to sleep, he admitted defeat and quietly dressed and went downstairs.

Evidence of the previous night’s excesses had vanished in the night, testament to the house-elves quietly-efficient hard work. The two seventh-years cuddled up together on one of the sofas even had a blanket pulled over them. Harry abruptly turned away, his face flaming. Kevin and Michael were going to have a _very_ awkward conversation when they woke up. Firewhiskey was dangerous stuff.

He was debating whether to simply go down for a very early breakfast when Hermione appeared beside him with a quiet pop. “Oh! Harry, what are you doing up?”

He shrugged. “Woke up. Couldn’t get back to sleep. Hermione, aren’t you taking a bit of a risk, doing that? I mean, what if you got it wrong? The teachers have said they’re not going to help.”

“Oh, I’m quite used to it, now, and I’ve read all the Ministry guidance and seven related books and self-help guides, including _Advanced Theory in Magical Transport_ by Duplicita Snort and _Legless in Lagos — A Year With Nigeria’s Magic Reversal Squad_. Although I’m not sure about some of the advice in that last one, I have to say.”

Harry shook his head. How on earth Hermione found time to read up on this sort of thing on top of homework was a mystery. “Did any of them mention trying to apparate with a duck on your head?”

“Well, no. That’s ridiculously unlikely, and besides, it’s against the apparition regulations.”

_As if that matters_. “True — but then there’s Luna.”

Hermione opened her mouth to retort, hesitated, and shrugged. “I’m not sure anyone can legislate for what Luna does. Harry, you really need to learn how to apparate,” she said, changing tack. “Imagine if you could have done that in the last couple of years! It could really get you out of trouble. It might even be important for the Tournament.”

“I will! I will, all right, but not here. I was going to ask Si- _someone_ — in the holidays.” He looked back, but the seventh-years hadn’t so much as twitched.

She gave him a sly smile, “I spoke to Ginny about it, and she agrees with me.”

“I bet she did,” Harry said neutrally, not wanting to rise to the bait. “You ready for breakfast?”

“It’s a bit early, but why not?”

They trudged the familiar route down to the Great Hall, where they found themselves alone barring a tall, skinny Slytherin sixth-year boy, who took no notice of them whatsoever.

“What are you doing today?” Harry asked, piling scrambled eggs onto a slice of toast.

“Well, we thought we’d go and see the Christmas displays in Hogsmeade, of course,” Hermione said, and stopped dead.

_Ah. One of _those _silences again_. “Yeah, you and Ron,” Harry said as naturally as possible.

“You’ll come, too, won’t you Harry?” she asked, a little desperately.

“I saw them the other week,” he said awkwardly. “Me and Ginny have been talking about helping Neville, so we’ll probably stay here and see if we can get started.” Harry hesitated, then decided to plough on. “We could really do with you and Ron as well.”

Hermione’s shoulders slumped a little, and she started twisting the hem of her jumper anxiously between her fingers. “I know. I _know_, Harry, but just today, just this once… I mean, there’s the rest of the holidays yet, and-”

“It’s OK. As you said, if Dumbledore can’t work it out, then we probably can’t either, but we can at least try.”

“Neville’s really pushed himself hard on this.” A small smile formed on Hermione’s lips. “You say Ginny’s helping you?”

“Yeah. It was sort of her idea in the first place.”

For a moment, he thought Hermione was going to say something, and then, to his relief, the moment passed. _Yes, _thank _you , Hermione, I was hoping to find a way to help Neville and maybe I wouldn’t actually be doing something about it if it wasn’t for Ginny, and yes, I _have _noticed she’s a girl, ha-ha, very funny, now leave it._

After breakfast, they returned to Gryffindor Tower, which was slowly coming to life. The two seventh-year boys had vanished, and a gaggle of first-years replaced them on the sofa. A few older students were also up and about, looking heavy-eyed. A heavy, reverberating _crash — crash - crash_ echoed through the room as a second-year dragged his trunk down the stairs, the free end bumping down each step. If anyone had been asleep before, they wouldn’t be now.

“Don’t just drag your trunk down like that!” Hermione ordered. “Harry, go and help him. Honestly, _boys_!”

Harry wasn’t quite sure why this was his fault, but did as he was told anyway and lifted the boy’s trunk with a quick _Wingardium Leviosa_.

“Oh. I probably should have thought of that,” the boy said sheepishly. Suddenly, Harry could understand where Hermione was coming from.

Sleepy-looking Gryffindors were starting to fill the common room, the younger ones all towing trunks that they piled in a corner before heading downstairs. Ginny appeared in a group with all of her room mates, and exchanged a wave with Harry on the way past. Ron was one of the last to emerge, washed and scrubbed and wearing jeans and last year’s Christmas jumper. It occurred to Harry that although Ron always moaned about them, they got an awful lot of wear. This one was getting rather a lot too small, but it wouldn’t be long before there would be the usual, half-hearted grumbles about ‘Bloody maroon, again’. At any rate, he headed for the Great Hall with Hermione in tow.

Harry went back up to the dorm and found Neville sitting on his bed, writing a letter to his grandmother.

“All right, Neville?”

“Oh, hiya Harry.”

“You not having breakfast, then?”

“I’ll go down in a bit, I just need to finish this.”

Harry hesitated, then decided to go for it. “I guess you’ll be back in the library, today. How’s it going?”

“It’s going,” Neville sighed. “There’s just so much to get through. Luna tries to help, but it’s a little difficult with eyes on the sides of your head and a nose that keeps getting in the way. She seems to be getting better at keeping the duck instincts under control, but it can’t go on like this!”

“Have you had any luck so far?”

“Well… maybe. I found a reference to something, but I can’t really find much more about it. A book that’s imbued with some sort of ancient spell that can undo the enchantment.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called _Malleus Mallardeficarum_.”

“You what? It sounds like a plant?”

“It’s definitely a book. There’s a mention of it in an old encyclopaedia, along with a brief history. It’s French, originally, and it seems to have been made some time in the 14th century in Normandy. According to this, it also spent some years in Bavaria, where it was known as _Der Entenhammer_, and in the Holy Roman Empire, where it was used on the court magician to Rudolf the Mad Alchemist.”

“So it has the counter-spell in it to whatever Luna did to herself?”

“That’s what I’m not sure about. Depending on how you read the encyclopaedia, it either contains a counter-spell, or it _is_ the counter-spell. I could really do with Hermione’s help, here.”

“Haven’t you asked? She doesn’t exactly need much encouragement to do research.”

“I tried,” Neville said gloomily. “Hermione’s rather easily distracted at the moment.”

“She is, isn’t she? I did ask her to come with us this morning, but she already had other plans. I think she’ll be along tomorrow, but in the mean time, Ginny and I would like to help instead.”

“You will?”

“Of course! We’ve been meaning to get involved, but there was just so much going on with the end of term. I know that’s not a great excuse, but-”

“It’s OK,” said Neville, cutting off the apology. “I’m just grateful for some help.” He sighed and put his letter aside. “Come on — breakfast?”

“Sure.”

Although Harry had already eaten, there was quite a party atmosphere in the Great Hall. The benches of the long tables were packed, although most of the students weren’t eating so much as talking, and so the general hubbub echoed from the ancient oak rafters. Even the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang had cautiously emerged from their carriage and ship, respectively, to join in.

“Harry! Neville! Hey, guys, over here!” Seamus called loudly, waving to get their attention. It barely carried over the din, but the boys joined the rest of their year at the Gryffindor table. Ron and Dean budged up to make space for them and they were soon caught up in the festive mood. Around them everyone was talking and laughing at the tops of their voices, the younger students about the trip home, the older students about their plans for the break and the upcoming Yule Ball, and everyone about Christmas. There was a real feeling of camaraderie which Harry, being by habit a rather solitary type, felt both a little uncomfortable about and strangely happy at being included.

At a quarter to ten, Professor Sinestra and Madam Hooch asked the older students to leave the hall to allow those heading home to be marked off and loaded onto coaches for Hogsmeade Station. Amidst the resulting chaos, Harry caught Ginny’s eye as she said goodbye to her friends further down the table and pointed at himself and Neville, then jerked a thumb towards the entrance hall. She nodded and held up her hand with her fingers spread. _Five minutes_.

They lingered in the entrance hall, ignoring the pointed scowls from Mr. Filch, until Ginny emerged, and then the three of them set off for the library. The library itself was deserted except for its severe custodian, but Neville nodded respectfully at Madam Pince and led them to a small desk right in the far corner which had apparently become his base. With the sign of practised familiarity, he quickly gathered up a couple of dusty-looking books from nearby shelves and spread them on the desk, flipping the first one open so that they could read.

“So, this is what I’ve got so far.”

_Arbelowe’s Accidental Almanac; Kill or Cure_ was written on very thin, waxy-feeling onionskin paper, the typescript dense and difficult to read. Neville pointed at an entry about a third of the way down the page and Harry and Ginny leaned close to read.

**Anatidocephaly**: A most rare and pernicious condition, persisting at great length even until death.  
Symptoms: Sudden appearance of feathers on upper body, head, and large avian bill. Eyes migrate laterally. Difficulty in controlling instincts of origin species.  
Cause:- hypermelange during poorly-controlled apparition in presence of certain avian species.  
Cure: Not known. Resistant to common magical reversal. Some cases report spontaneous reversion. Folk cures rumoured to exist, notably in northern France, southern Germany. See also: _Entenhammer_.  
Current treatment: Intensive therapy to reinforce image of Self, followed by repeated apparition. Success rate: low/none.  
Prognosis: Baste on low with plum sauce until juices run clear, serve on a bed of wild rice.

Ginny was the first to look up. “Err… Neville…?!”

Neville shrugged. “It seems to take the ‘Kill or Cure’ part very seriously, although not in the way you might expect.”

“But cannibalism?”

“Waste not, want not, I suppose. And no, we’re not going there! Anyway, on to the next book.”

This time, the entry was under _Malleus Mallardeficarum_ and agreed with what Neville had told Harry earlier. A Norman book from the 14th century, and, crucially, also known as _Der Entenhammer_ after a spell in Bavaria. The last known location was in 1577 in the court of the Holy Roman Empire under Rudolf the Second.

The last book was a large, hand-lettered tome creaking with age. On the thick, vellum pages was recorded an account of the life of Rudolf II, ‘The Mad Alchemist’, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 1576 to 1612. Written in flowery Olde English, the crucial paragraphs that Neville had found recounted Rudolf gathering a number of noted muggle alchemists to his court to further his studies of the occult — and particularly a Philip Lang, who he appointed ‘Court Magician’. What was much less known to the muggles was that Philip Lang was in fact a wizard from a middling aristocratic family, and the ‘miracles’ he produced for the Emperor were real magic. After a magic demonstration went “moste horriblie wrong”, Rudolf had sent for _Malleus Mallardeficarum_ and somehow used it to cure Philip. How the cure was effected was not noted, although it observed that Philip was ‘afterwards ever afeared of divers waterfowls’.

“It sounds like you’re on the right track, all right,” said Ginny. “Where are you going from here?”

Neville ran his hands through his hair, “There’s two problems. One, how did Rudolf cure him? Especially being a muggle — it was the _other_ bloke who was the wizard. And two, even if we do work that out, where do we find the book now?”

“Maybe if we can lay hands on it, it will have some sort of instructions,” said Harry. “I mean, it’s a spell book, isn’t it?”

“That’s the thing,” Neville said, “I don’t know _what_ it is, I don’t know _where_ it is, and I don’t know _how_ to use it. I’m working my way through everything I can think of but I’m running out of leads.”

“Have you asked Professor Dumbledore about it? Or Professor McGonagall? This sort of magic is closely related to Transfiguration, after all, so it’d be right up their alley,” Ginny asked.

“No. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t pestering them with some sort of fairy tale.” Neville hesitated. “Does this make any sense to you? I mean, sometimes I wonder-”

“Yes,” Ginny said firmly. “You’ve done brilliantly.”

“It’s a lot more solid than anything anyone else turned up,” Harry added. “What can we do to help?”

Neville took a deep breath and blew it out, and some of the tension seemed to leave him with it. “I’ve been trying to cross-reference everything in these books to find more. Anatidocephaly, _Malleus Mallardeficarum,_ _Entenhammer_, Rudolf the Second, 14th Century Norman history, 16th Century German and Bohemian history… it’s an awfully long list. I’ve even been through our History of Magic textbooks. If you don’t mind doing some reading, it’d help me get through the list a lot quicker.”

“Let’s get started,” said Ginny.

Harry was a little less enthusiastic, but dutifully chose a book off Neville’s carefully-compiled list, noted the shelf location recorded beside the name, and set off to find his quarry. He returned with an old, squat volume nearly eight inches thick that hissed at him and flailed at his hands with a woven bookmark when he undid the metal latches holding it shut, until Neville stroked its spine gently and it settled down.

The rest of the morning crawled past as books were ticked off the list and reshelved, and new tomes were sought, and the dust smeared their clothes and seemed to settle in their throats until they nearly choked, but they found nothing to help them.

Ginny shut a thin, canvassed-backed volume with a sigh, then stretched. “I’m famished, and if I don’t get a drink soon I’m going to spend the rest of the day coughing. What do you say to some lunch, Neville?”

“You guys go on ahead,” he said vaguely, absorbed in his work. “I just want to get through this one.”

“Okay, then, see you downstairs. C’mon, Harry, maybe we can ask Professor McGonagall on the way.”

A break sounded like a good idea to him, so he was happy to follow her out of the Library and away from the desiccated air and smell of old parchment. They detoured towards Gryffindor Tower, but when they rounded the corner to Professor McGonagall’s quarters they were surprised to see the tall figure of the Headmaster hastily closing her door, cutting off the plaintive wail of bagpipes. A second later came the unmistakable sound of something shattering against the door, and swearing in Gaelic.

“Professor Dumbledore!”

“Ah, Miss Weasley, Mr Potter. What brings you here?”

“We were looking for Professor McGonagall, actually,” said Ginny. “But it sounds like this might be a bad time.”

Dumbledore coughed. “Professor McGonagall is somewhat tired and emotional after a long and particularly trying term. Is there something I can assist you with, instead?”

Harry hesitated, and Ginny took charge instead. “Well, two things, actually. Firstly, Harry needs someone to teach him how to apparate.”

The headmaster smiled. “You don’t wish to learn from one of your friends or classmates? I’m sure your twin brothers, for example, would be most helpful in this endeavour, Miss Weasley?”

From the twinkle in his blue eyes, Harry was almost certain that Dumbledore was gently winding them up. “I’d prefer to have someone that actually knows what they’re doing,” he said. “The twins _probably_ do, but you know what happened with Ron?”

“Indeed. A quite remarkable sequence of events.”

“_That’s_ why I don’t want to ask the twins,” he said firmly. “But, as several people have pointed out, it would give me a way to get out of trouble if I needed to.”

“A wise precaution. In fact, with the end of term, I would be quite willing to teach you, myself. Both of you, I should add. According to Professor McGonagall, you are becoming something of a pair, so if I teach one I may as well teach the other.”

“Thanks, Professor. That’s assuming you’re up for it, Ginny?” he asked innocently.

As he expected, he could see the challenge and defiance rise in her eyes. “Try and stop me, Potter!”

The two grinned at each other, broken only by Dumbledore clearing his throat. Harry was startled to see the old man looking rather wistful.

“And the other thing?”

Harry and Ginny exchanged a look, and she took the lead. “Neville Longbottom has been looking for something that might help Luna Lovegood. He found a reference to a book called _Malleus Mallardeficarum _but he can’t seem to find anything more about it. We were wondering if you’d ever heard of it?”

_“Malleus Mallardeficarum_, you say? Good heavens, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in many, many years!”

“You know of it, Professor?” Harry asked.

“Oh, yes. The mystery of the _Malleus Mallardeficarum_ has never been satisfactorily solved, I believe. I’ve been meaning to look into it for some years, but alas, other things do have a habit of cropping up and getting in the way.”

“Do you know where we could find it? Maybe if we had it, we could work out how to help Luna,” said Ginny.

“Hmm… yes, certainly, it’s possible. The last I heard of it, it was in fact in England, at an old stately home called Buckland Abbey. It’s not far from Ottery St. Catchpole, actually, Miss Weasley, near the village of Buckland Monachorum. It’s a rather pretty part of the world.”

“What on earth is it doing there?”

“I believe the rumour is that it was brought back to England by Sir Francis Drake. Buckland Abbey was his home and stayed in his family for hundreds of years until the late 1940s, when it was donated to the country to avoid death duties. You say it may aid Miss Lovegood in some fashion?”

They explained Neville’s discoveries in the library, and the Headmaster listened with rapt attention. “That does indeed sound most promising — and a remarkable piece of scholarship and diligence from Mr. Longbottom. Twenty points to Gryffindor, I should think. Now, if you would like to accompany me, I must return to my office to consult a tome of great and varied knowledge.”

Feeling a flutter of elation, Harry caught Ginny’s eye as they fell into step behind him, and the fierce pride and happiness as she looked back at him gave him a flutter in his stomach of an entirely different kind. That feeling lasted all the way to the squat gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster’s Study.

“Ice mice.”

The gargoyle slid aside, revealing the now-familiar spiral staircase.

Professor Dumbledore’s study was exactly as Harry remembered it, a large, circular room lined with the portraits of former Headmasters. Below the portraits were bookcases packed with books of all shapes and sizes, and peculiar little gadgets of steel and brass whirred and ticked and puffed quietly on little tables. In the centre of the room was the headmaster’s desk, a large, ornately-carved rampart of polished mahogany. Behind the desk, Fawkes the phoenix sat on his perch, head under his wing and fast asleep.

Dumbledore strode towards the dozing portrait of Armando Dippet and began fossicking in a bookcase. “Now, where did I put it? I know it’s around here somewhere… ah, yes.”

He pulled out a dog-eared paperback book and leafed through it. Harry and Ginny read the title and exchanged a look. It was marked ‘National Trust Guide — 1993’.

“Ah yes, open between 11am and 4pm today. Well, as we are hot on the trail, we should make the most of our opportunities. I suggest that we floo to the Burrow — if your parents are amenable, Miss Weasley — and then we can apparate from there to the Abbey. Side-along apparition, I should add. This isn’t the time for experimentation. Will Mr. Longbottom be joining us, as well?”

“Err… dunno, actually,” said Harry. Somehow, things had progressed much faster than he had expected.

“We’ll ask,” said Ginny.

“Capital! Well, two or three of you makes no odds, as far as I’m concerned, but I would recommend that we have a good lunch to set us up before we go. You may also wish to wear warmer clothes, but of course we shall be amongst the muggles, so be sure to dress inconspicuously. Please return to my office at 1:30. You heard the password?”

“Yes, Professor.”

Professor Dumbledore smiled genially. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I must start to make my own arrangements. I shall see you again shortly.”

“So, where to?” Harry asked when they were back in the third-floor corridor. “D’you think we’ll find Neville in the Great Hall, or is he still in the library?”

Ginny thought for a moment. “Let’s start with the Great Hall. If he’s not there, I’ll run up to the library and catch him there.”

“Fair enough.”

They set off for the Great Hall and lunch.

“You must wish we were going to have lunch at The Burrow,” Harry said.

“Yes and no. Mum would love it, but she’d feel like she had to make an effort and do something special, and it would be a big song-and-dance, and I love my mother, really I do, but it’s just easier this way.”

The Great Hall was only sparsely populated for lunch, as most of the remaining students had gone to Hogsmeade for the day. There was no sign of Neville Longbottom, but they did spot Luna Lovegood sitting on her own on the Ravenclaw table, ignored by her housemates as she pecked rather messily at some bread. Harry and Ginny exchanged a look and then went and sat with her.

She quacked happily at them as they sat, turning her head to focus her disturbing, silver-grey eyes on each of them, then pulled a crumpled piece of paper and a pencil from her robes.

_Hello. It’s good to see you. I was starting to think I was infested with Dingbats_, she wrote, with a pointed look at her housemates — or at least, as pointed as she could manage with her eyes on either side of her head.

“Hello, Luna,” Ginny said calmly. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, still.”

_Professor Dumbledore suggested that I stay so he can examine my condition in more detail. I miss Daddy, but he agreed_.

“We’ve been working with Neville,” said Harry awkwardly. “Have you seen him?”

_Not since this morning_.

Ginny nodded. “He’ll be in the library, then. Sorry, Luna, but I’ve just got to run up and ask him something. Back soon.”

With that, she jogged off, leaving Harry to talk to Luna and to wonder if he should eat while Ginny was still running about. After a few abortive attempts at conversation, he decided that eating was the better option. Luna didn’t seem to mind, though.

Ginny returned a few minutes later, puffing a little. “Neville says he’ll pass. He wants to see if he can find out how to use it, assuming we do actually find it.”

He could read the unspoken question in her eyes — _Do we tell Luna about this_? He shook his head. It didn’t seem fair to get her hopes up when they hadn’t even found the book yet, let alone worked out how it worked.

Ginny managed to make conversation with Luna and eat at the same time, checking the time every few minutes. Finally, she pushed her plate away. “Harry, we ought to get a move on. Sorry, Luna, but we’ve got something on, and we’re going to have to go. Catch you later?”

Luna quacked and held up a hand in farewell — and, unless Harry mistook it, winked at Ginny. Judging by the colour of her face, he probably hadn’t. Oh dear.

They hurried up to their dorms and gathered up their coats, and Harry was surprised to see her carrying a bulky-looking backpack when he met her in the common room.

“Christmas presents,” she explained. “It seems silly not to take them when we’re going to be right there, and then have to post them in a few days,” she pointed out.

Harry, feeling rather stupid, ran back upstairs to retrieve his own presents for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

They made it to the gargoyle right on time, and rode the spiral staircase up to the Headmaster’s Study. Harry knocked on the inner door, and pushed it open. Professor Dumbledore looked up from the chair behind his desk and rose energetically to his feet. Harry couldn’t restrain a grin. It seemed that ‘Dressing inconspicuously’ meant a three-piece plum-coloured suit with matching bowler hat and white spats.

“Nice suit, Professor!”

Dumbledore grinned happily. “I rather think so,” he said, grasping the lapels of his jacket. “It’s a shame I so seldom get a chance to give it an airing. Are you quite ready? I spoke to your parents, Miss Weasley, and they are expecting us. Who wants to go first?”

“Ginny,” said Harry, at the same time as she said, “Harry.”

She grinned impudently at him, and added, “Once Harry gets lost in the floo again, we can go and find him.”

“Once!” Harry said, aggrieved, “Just once, and does anybody let me forget it?!”

Dumbledore smiled, and held out a small, china pot.

“Then perhaps you can demonstrate what you’ve learned?”

* * * * *

* * *


	4. Fit the Last

* * * * *

The swirling green chaos of the floo was just as disorienting and terrifying as he remembered, but he did manage to heave himself forward at the right time, and found himself tottering wildly in the front room of the Burrow. He felt a small moment of triumph before something crashed into his chest and knocked him full length onto the floor, driving the breath out of him. He gasped for air through a face full of red hair.

“Ginny! Harry! Are you both all right?” asked Mrs. Weasley, bustling into the room from the kitchen.

“Honestly, Harry! Get out of the way, next time!” Ginny huffed, rolling off him.

“Tsk! Throwing yourself at him, young lady!” her mother scolded, eyes twinkling and biting her lip to keep from laughing.

Ginny turned scarlet and glared at her mother, and Harry could feel the blood burning in his cheeks. Mrs. Weasley burst out laughing and hugged her daughter tightly, then gave Harry a hand up and a crushing hug, as well.

“It’s so good to see you both, my dears.”

Mr. Weasley hurried in with an arm full of logs for the stove at the other end of the room. “You could have turned up any time today, and you chose the one time I had to pop outside for a minute,” he said, quickly dropping the logs by the stove and giving his daughter a kiss. “Welcome home, even if it is only a quick visit,” he added, shaking Harry’s hand enthusiastically.

_Home? Well, it’s a lot more like home than the Dursleys has ever been_. “Thanks, Mr. Weasley.”

He didn’t really have time to think more about it, as he and Ginny were bombarded with good-natured questions. “How are your classes going? And you’re keeping out of trouble, I hope? I daren’t ask about the twins. Do you know what the second task is, yet? Did Ron get our last letter? He ought to write more often.” And so on.

Ginny did most of the talking, and despite her grumbles to him earlier, he noticed how her face lit up with genuine happiness. She was right, Molly Weasley could be a bit overbearing in a well-meaning way, but there was never any doubt how much she loved her kids — and how much her kids loved her.

He was starting to wonder if somehow Professor Dumbledore had taken a wrong turn when the fireplace roared briefly with green flame and the Professor stepped out as easily as if he’d been in the next room.

“Ah, Molly, thank you for hosting us on such short notice.”

“You’re always welcome, Albus. Do you have a few minutes to spare for a cup of tea and a sit-down, or are you in a hurry?”

“Alas, we find ourselves with something of a time constraint, but I’m sure that a cup of tea would be most welcome on our return.”

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked disappointed, but Mr. Weasley said, “Well, we’ll be here whenever you’re ready. After all, finding something that might help Luna after her accident is the most important thing. I have to say, Royston Vasey in Magical Accidents was absolutely fascinated, but poor old Xenophilius has been worried sick.”

“He does rather dote on her, as you know, especially since Pandora died,” Mrs. Weasley added, twisting the cuff of her jumper anxiously.

Professor Dumbledore smiled reassuringly, “All is not yet lost for Miss Lovegood, and I’m confident that our two young adventurers, here, are on the right track. Thank you once again for the use of your floo.”

“Any time, Albus — and good luck!”

Harry and Ginny handed over their Christmas presents so that they could leave their bags behind, and then followed Dumbledore out into the front yard.

“Well, now, who wants to go first? Harry?” the Headmaster asked cheerfully.

He took a deep breath. “Might as well, I suppose.”

“It’s quite simple, and there’s no need to be alarmed. If you’ll just take a firm grip on my arm?”

Dumbledore held out his arm in a courtly gesture and, feeling a little silly, Harry gripped it just above the wrist. He felt Dumbledore’s arm start to pull away under his hand and automatically tightened his grip. An instant later, he had plunged into a total darkness that squeezed suffocatingly tightly from all directions. He couldn’t open his mouth or expand his chest to take a breath, but just as he started to panic, light winked back on and his ears popped, and the pressure vanished. He sucked in huge gasps of the chill air, partly in relief, partly in need, and partly in pure shock.

After a few desperate breaths, he found that he was standing in a small, flint-walled courtyard. Above him, the sky was a lowering overcast that leaked the occasional drop without any real intention of proper rain.

“Hmm, it does take some getting used to, doesn’t it?” came Dumbledore’s voice from beside him. “After a while, you barely notice. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back momentarily with Miss Weasley.”

Harry nodded, and the Headmaster vanished with a small pop.

Feeling that he should get out of the way, he spied a wooden gate set into one of the walls and went to stand by it. Moments later, Dumbledore popped back into existence with a wide-eyed Ginny clutching his arm.

“Ah, and there we are. You can let go now, Miss Weasley.”

It seemed that quite a feat of will was needed for Ginny to unclench her fingers. Harry could empathise with the feeling.

“Now, then, through the gate you will find we’re in the car park for the Abbey. From there, it’s just a short walk to the house. Follow me, if you will.”

He lifted the latch and strode confidently through the gate, Harry and Ginny trailing behind him.

“You all right?” Harry asked in a low voice, waving her through the gate ahead of him.

She nodded. “Maybe it’s better when you do it yourself.”

“Maybe.”

They exited onto a long, paved driveway, with a row of cars parked to their left and a series of stone buildings to their right. There were quite a few muggles around, either returning to their cars or following the signs up the drive towards the house, and although Harry and Ginny were not particularly remarked on, they did both notice the incredulous looks directed at Professor Dumbledore. It wasn’t just the unusual suit, but the long, flowing white hair and a beard that reached down to his belt buckle which were also completely at odds with the clothing, hairstyles, and facial grooming of the muggles. The Professor, meanwhile, proceeded on his way with the calm and unruffled grace of a swan.

They followed the driveway around until they came to a long, low stone building, and stepped through a smartly-painted black door marked ‘Way In’. To one side, cold-looking muggles were warming themselves up in a café area with mugs of tea and soup, but Professor Dumbledore led them straight up to a desk with a sign saying ‘Admissions’.

“One senior and two children, please,” Dumbledore said pleasantly to the lady behind the desk. She stared up at him, her mouth hanging open, and it took a few seconds for her to pull herself together and ring it up.

“Would you like a guide?” she asked, handing over his change.

Harry and Ginny each took a thin pamphlet but Dumbledore declined.

“Thank you, but I’ve been here before. I attended a ball here some years ago.”

“Really?” the woman asked weakly. “How long ago? The house has been in Trust ownership since 1948.”

“Let me see… yes… early June, I think it was. 1924.”

That completely stumped her, and Harry had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at her expression. He didn’t dare look at Ginny or he knew he’d lose it.

“Enjoy your visit,” she managed in a faint voice.

They followed the signs outside through a huge stone barn until they got their first view of the house proper, an extraordinary blend of styles in stone and slate. A large tower with a faux-crenelated roofline dominated the centre of the house. The lower windows were square, while the upper storey windows were tall, ecclesiastical, multi-paned arches. A lone flying buttress ran from the tower to the lower house, and the front of the tower bore an arrowhead of stones marking the steep roofline of an original wing that had been removed, and the archway beneath had been filled in with brick. The gardens were tightly clipped back for the winter, letting the house look out on gently rolling hills.

The damp and chill did not encourage them to linger, and so they hurried on into the house itself. Dumbledore smiled benevolently at the energetic-looking old man in a National Trust fleece that greeted them, and made polite conversation while Harry and Ginny quickly read through their guides. They continued on into the Sir Francis Drake museum, dotted with a startlingly-diverse array of artifacts from around the world, ranging from chess sets, to large sculptures, to tribal figurines, even a highly-polished sterling silver shovel. Again, Professor Dumbledore was seemingly happy to wait while Harry and Ginny read the display notes for Drake’s Drum and admired the treasures with the half-a-dozen muggle visitors, but after a few minutes he started guiding them to the back of the room, and then deeper into the house.

They passed through a dining room and climbed a staircase dominated by an enormous stone statue of Drake in full costume, but rather than turn off the landing into a room full of dummies posed in Elizabethan finery, Dumbledore quickly looked around and led them into a nondescript little anteroom, a large servant’s cupboard of some sort.

Harry and Ginny watched as Dumbledore pressed a small pin into the pad of each thumb, squeezed a tiny bead of blood from each of them, and then stepped forward and touched his thumbs together on the wall just above head-height. He opened his arms about a yard, keeping contact with the wall, and then ran them down to the floor. Silver light flared in the trail of his thumbs, and once the drawing was complete, a door faded into view.

“Cool, sir!”

“Why did you have to do that?” Ginny asked.

“It is necessary to offer a small sacrifice to enter the old part of the house. The muggles believe it was destroyed when the Abbey was remodelled by Sir Francis Drake, but instead it was merely hidden. I think whoever laid the warding spell had a sense of humour.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because of the means required to pass it. To the muggles, witches and wizards were seen as evil, and so — ‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes’. Rather droll, don’t you think? Come, let us continue our search.”

With that, he opened the door and ushered them through, following close behind them. In front of them was a wall of tightly-packed bookshelves, lit by a large window on their right, while a sultry female voice on their left made Harry and Ginny jump.

“Ooh, who do we have here?”

The speaker was a very dusty, life-sized portrait of a breathtakingly-beautiful woman, who swung her legs off a velvet fainting-couch and rose on towering heels. She had high cheekbones, and long, dark hair piled up on top of her head and allowed to fall in waves down her back. Her dress and bodice were black velvet, although the dress was slit rather scandalously high up the leg, and the very low-cut bodice only accentuated… certain other assets… that hadn’t gone out of style in the intervening century or two. Nor had the voice, for that matter. Harry felt himself start to sweat.

“How lovely to see you again, Elvira,” said Dumbledore calmly.

“I’d say the same, but I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, sir,” said the painting. “Not something that happens very often.”

“Usually the other way around, if I remember rightly. Albus Dumbledore, at your service.”

“Dumbledore? _Oh_, I remember a Dumbledore. It was you with the ear trumpet, the aubergine, and the feather duster, wasn’t it?”

Dumbledore coughed awkwardly. “Perhaps now is not the time,” he said, with a glance at Harry and Ginny.

She grinned wolfishly. “Not in front of the grandkids, huh? That stain never did come out. Anyway, you were a handsome young devil, when I remember you. What happened?”

“About 70 years.”

The woman’s shoulders rose and slumped, doing… interesting… things to her cleavage.

_Professor Trelawney on a cold day! Professor Trelawney on a cold day! Professor Trelawney on a cold day!_

“Really? That long? Huh, you really lose track of time when you’re a portrait in an abandoned house. Still, I bet you didn’t just drop in to renew acquaintances with me.”

“Sadly not. As delightful as your company is, Madam, we also came in search of a particular book from the library.”

The plump, cherry-red lips pouted in disappointment. “Oh. Well, whatever. Knock yourselves out.”

Dumbledore hesitated. “Perhaps I shall stay and talk while my young associates search for the book?”

The portrait looked up with smouldering blue eyes. “Really?” She had trouble keeping the hope out of her voice, which Harry thought was actually quite sad. Did portraits get lonely? He didn’t see any other portraits for her to visit, just endless walls of books.

“Most certainly,” he said, with a significant look at Harry and Ginny.

Ginny looked around at the wide expanse of densely-packed shelves. “Um… OK. Where should we start?”

Dumbledore simply raised an eyebrow. “Under ‘M’, I would suggest.”

Harry had to swallow back a snort of laughter, and pulled Ginny away before she could retort, but the portrait’s mocking laughter rang out behind them.

The books appeared to be arranged in alphabetical order, but that order wasn’t always easy to follow as sections trailed around alcoves, then jumped across to islands of bookcases in the middle of the room, or even right across the room, in no especially logical sequence. Some of the ‘J’s seemed to rustle and shuffle restlessly at their approach, but they found the ‘M’s arranged in an order that ran right around an island of bookcases.

Behind them, they could hear Dumbledore and the painting talking animatedly, and occasionally, the painting’s low, throaty laughter. It was incredible how a laugh could simultaneously sound so joyful and so insinuating.

Harry found their target on their second run through the ‘M’s. Quite a number of the books had no title on their spine, and so they had to pull each individual book partly out of the shelf to check. A few of the books didn’t appreciate being disturbed and had to be forced back into place.

“Ginny? Over here.”

The heavy, black leather of the cover was scarred and pitted, and the title was carved deeply into it in letters the colour of blood. Indeed, they seemed to glow with a red malevolence when the light caught them. Harry ran a hand down the spine, and felt an urge to wipe his fingers. The pages were thick vellum and had a slightly greasy, almost fleshy, feel.

“This is it. _Malleus Mallardeficarum_,” breathed Ginny. “Merlin’s beard, it looks _evil_!”

“Yeah.” Harry hesitated for a moment. “Does this seem too easy to you? I mean, we just walk in, and there it is?”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “What were you expecting? Carnivorous plants? Giant chess pieces? Flying keys?”

Harry grinned at her, recognising the references. “Well, maybe a row of potions with a riddle, or at least a dragon or two.”

Ginny laughed, “Come on, let’s get out of here before an army of zombies show up, or something.”

“Professor? We found it.”

The painting’s finely-plucked eyebrows shot up. “_Professor_? Whoa. You were _much_ more fun when you were younger.”

Dumbledore just smiled. “As are we all, although I hope I haven’t completely descended into staid, stick-in-the-mud old age. We wish to borrow this book for a time.”

Harry held it up for the portrait, but she waved it away disinterestedly. “That dusty old thing? Eh, whatever. You’ll bring it back, though?”

Again, Harry could hear a note of hope in her voice. _Lonely, all right_.

“As soon as opportunity permits,” Dumbledore promised. “And perhaps we can resume our conversation.”

“I should look forward to that very much.”

“And now we must bid you farewell,” he said, with a short, courtly, bow.

They followed Dumbledore back through the hidden door to the main house, but it was only after the door swung shut behind them that Ginny asked, “Who _was_ that, Professor?”

“That, Miss Weasley, was Elvira, Lady Le Soir. A very powerful and tremendously talented witch — and, in her day, one of the most dangerous people in Europe.”

“She seems very lonely, and there’s not even any other paintings for her to talk to,” said Harry, as they descended the stairs.

“Sadly, that is quite deliberate. As I said, in her day she was one of the most dangerous people in Europe, and while her physical charms may have perished, her personality and, most importantly, her knowledge has been preserved in her painting.”

“What’s so dangerous about a painting?”

“Knowledge. Secrets. Old magic. Many people foolishly attributed her influence to her looks, but they failed to realise that her most potent weapon was always her mind. She was an arch-manipulator in her day, and I have no doubt that her portrait retains her silver tongue and also her love of causing mayhem — sometimes benign, but also deadly when the fancy takes her. You may wish to note how she has evoked pity from Mr. Potter — justifiably, perhaps — but with it, she seeks to obtain an advantage, an opening of some sort to the outer world. And yet, she has proved again and again that this cannot be permitted.”

The energetic old man that had greeted them on the way in was coming the other way, and Harry tried to hide the _Malleus Mallardeficarum _behind himself as unobtrusively as he could.

“Oh! Hello, I thought we’d cleared this section. The house is closing in five minutes, so if you’d like to make your way back to the front door?”

“Of course.”

“So, she just stays there forever, all alone?” Ginny asked when he had gone.

“The alternative is to destroy the painting, and that is not something done lightly. In truth, I fear that Elvira has been placed here, out of the way — and rather conveniently forgotten, rather than deal with her one way or the other. And so she persists, guarding the old library here. Do not be fooled by her seemingly-casual dismissal of the book that we took, I can guarantee you that she marked it well — and, should it suit her and the opportunity arise, she will seek to trade that knowledge to her advantage. But come, it is time for us to return to the Burrow. I’m sure Arthur and Molly can’t wait to spend some time with you.”

They were some of the last visitors to head back down the driveway towards the car park, and the rapidly-deepening gloom made it relatively easy to slip back into the little stone courtyard unnoticed and disapparate. Despite Harry’s deep misgivings, now that he knew what to expect the process was a little more bearable the second time around.

It was raining in earnest in Ottery St. Catchpole, and Harry hurried to the door while Professor Dumbledore returned to fetch Ginny. Lights shone through the windows, but he stopped with his hand halfway to the latch, wondering if he should knock rather than just walk in. After all, it was someone else’s house, and it didn’t seem quite right to just barge in-

Mr. Weasley quickly opened the door and ushered him inside. “Good gracious, Harry, don’t just stand out there, it’s pelting down. Here, hold still for a moment.”

Mr. Weasley raised his wand, and suddenly Harry was dry again. “Come along into the sitting room where it’s warm. Molly!”

Harry heard a pop from outside, and turned to see Dumbledore walking serenely towards them with Ginny by his side, the rain parting and bouncing off when it got within a few feet of them.

Mrs. Weasley ducked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “Oh, there you are, Harry. Go through and sit by the fire. Would you like a hot chocolate?”

“Yes, please, Mrs. Weasley.”

Despite the inviting warmth of the fire, Harry lingered in the sitting room doorway while Ginny and Dumbledore wiped their feet and said hello. Ginny got a hug and sent through to the sitting room, but he noticed that Professor Dumbledore stepped into the kitchen to talk to the elder Weasleys.

Ginny stopped in front of him, looking up enquiringly. “All right, Harry?”

He smiled at her and peered over her shoulder back towards the kitchen, but the door remained firmly shut. “Yeah. So, what do you think? Better the second time?”

Ginny caught on, and turned to look, too. “I guess you know what to expect, but there is still a weird urge to go somewhere quiet and check that you haven’t left anything behind,” she said, with a shudder.

“Even though it’s Dumbledore, yeah.”

“Mind you, apparently that really _did_ happen to Cormac McLaggen,” she said, gesturing in the obvious direction.

Harry winced, but Ginny started to giggle.

“Can you imagine, having to walk to the Hospital Wing holding _that_? ‘Um… Madam Pomfrey…?’”

The kitchen door opened, and Mr. Weasley emerged holding two large mugs of hot chocolate.

“I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me, he’s managed that with just about every other body part in the last month or so,” said Harry.

They were both about to turn and go into the sitting room, when Mr. Weasley started grinning at them.

“Now, now, you two, I know you’re going to this Yule Ball together, but really!”

“Err… what?”

He simply mimed looking upward. Harry and Ginny did so… and saw that they were standing right underneath the sprig of mistletoe pinned over the door. Harry felt all his blood rush into his face, and they both bolted into the sitting room. Mr. Weasley followed, chuckling and shaking his head.

“Just thank your lucky stars that the boys aren’t here, or you’d never hear the end of it,” he said, handing each of them a mug.

Harry laughed, despite his burning cheeks. “I think Ginny has that particular problem well in hand.”

Dumbledore and Mrs. Weasley joined them in the sitting room with tea and a plate of fresh biscuits, and Harry quickly found himself describing the chaos of the last few months at Hogwarts, ably assisted by Ginny. He did remember to censor some of the more outrageous or illicit adventures, but the twinkle in Dumbledore’s eye at some of their omissions and evasions told him that the kindly old Headmaster knew far more about these goings-on than they’d thought.

All too soon, the mantle clock was striking six.

“Good gracious, is that the time?” said Dumbledore. “As much as I have enjoyed your hospitality, I believe we should be getting back to Hogwarts.”

“Yes, I suppose it is getting late — and Luna will be waiting for you,” said Mrs. Weasley. “You found what you were looking for?”

“Yeah. I just hope we can do something for her,” said Ginny.

“Well, before you go… I’ll be back in a minute,” said Mr. Weasley. He shot a look at Professor Dumbledore, who rose to his feet as well.

“Perhaps I should make myself comfortable before the journey,” he said calmly, and followed Mr. Weasley out. A minute later, Mr. Weasley was back with their backpacks, both full.

“Seeing as you’re here, we thought you could take everyone’s Christmas presents,” he said. “They’ll need un-shrinking, of course, but I’m sure you can manage that.”

They said their thank-yous, and Mrs. Weasley gave them both a tight hug.

“We weren’t expecting to see you this Christmas, so this has been a wonderful surprise. Give our love to the boys, and have a wonderful time at the Ball.”

“Do write and let us know how it goes,” said Mr. Weasley. His face took on an uncharacteristic sternness and he added, “And I know what the boys can be like, so you may tell them that if they give you two any trouble, we will be having words when they get home.”

“We’ll see if we can make it up for the second task,” said Mrs. Weasley. “Be good!”

Ginny grinned, “And if we can’t be good, then don’t get caught, we know!”

“Now, Ginny,” her mother started indignantly, but luckily, Professor Dumbledore reappeared at that point, and she let it drop.

“Are we ready, then? Molly, Arthur, thank you again. Now, who wants to go first, this time.”

“Harry!”

“Ginny! Damn. Ugh, hand me that floo powder, then.”

* * * * *

Harry lurched out of the floo, tripped over the grate, and stumbled head-first into a conveniently-placed chair. He quickly flipped himself around to a normal sitting position, _Malleus Mallardeficarum_ in his lap, as Ginny hopped out of the floo with fluid grace.

“What kept you?” he asked innocently.

She laughed. “Floo congestion. Some slowpoke hogging the fireplace.”

Professor Dumbledore stepped out of the floo before Harry could retort. “Well, now. All safe and sound? Excellent! Dinner should be starting in the Great Hall very shortly, so I suggest that you eat and then ask Mr. Longbottom and Miss Lovegood to join us here in my office.”

Outside, they hefted their backpacks onto their shoulders and set off for Gryffindor Tower.

"So, where do you reckon we’ll find Neville? Library?”

“Library. Let’s swing by there after we’ve dropped this lot off.”

To their surprise, they found Neville in the common room with Ron and Hermione.

He looked up hopefully when they entered. “Any luck?”

“Yeah. Give us a minute and we’ll tell you about it over dinner.”

They jogged upstairs to leave their coats and backpacks, and found the twins waiting for them when they returned.

“Ah, look, our two little birds have returned to the nest once more!” cackled Fred.

“You two, sneaking off together all day, again,” George said, in a mock-regretful tone.

“Yeah, just us and Professor Dumbledore,” Ginny said coolly, glaring at them.

The twins’ shoulders slumped. “You know, you’re taking all the fun out of this,” said George.

“My heart bleeds!” she snapped. “Gits!”

For a moment, Harry thought she was going to utilise her father’s threat, but she just turned sharply on her heel and headed for the portrait, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville falling into step behind her.

The Great Hall was only about half-full, so it was easy to get seats together, where Harry and Ginny could describe the day’s events.

“When we’re done, here, Dumbledore wants to see us, Neville, and Luna,” Harry concluded. “Although I don’t see her here?”

“I know where to find her,” said Neville. He was looking tired and rumpled, but his bloodshot eyes had a look of hope about them that they hadn’t seen for days.

“Did you find anything more since this morning?” Ginny asked.

“Not a bean,” Neville sighed. “Let’s hope that Professor Dumbledore has some bright ideas.”

They noted how quickly Neville bolted down the rest of his dinner, and picked up the pace themselves. Finally, Harry pushed his plate away. “Come on, then.”

Ron went to stand up, as well, but Hermione caught his arm and the two exchanged a look. Ron sank back down, looking a bit disgruntled. “Let us know how it goes,” he said, after a moment.

“Thanks.”

“I’ll find Luna,” said Neville.

“You know the gargoyle on the third floor? Meet you there,” said Ginny.

Harry and Ginny only had to wait a few minutes until Neville turned up with and Luna in tow, and the four of them rode the spiral staircase up to the Headmaster’s Study. Harry could feel his stomach churning a little in anticipation, and wondered how Neville and Luna were feeling. Presumably worse.

Dumbledore welcomed them and waved them over to a set of comfortable-looking armchairs around his desk, the _Malleus Mallardeficarum _open in front of them. Harry noted that this time, nearly all of the portraits were awake, and those that weren’t craning their heads to get a look were listening with undisguised interest.

“Well, now, Miss Lovegood, as you may know, Mr. Longbottom has identified a book that may be able to help us resolve your unfortunate semi-avian condition. This afternoon, Mr. Potter and Miss Weasley helped me to retrieve it, but we are yet to ascertain its exact method of employment.”

Luna tilted her head to examine the book, and hissed loudly at it, some feathers rising on the back of her head.

“There is no need to be alarmed, I believe it is quite safe. For now, we wish to examine the book in more detail to see if there is any clue as to how it may be used. If you would like to do the honours, Mr. Longbottom?”

Neville took a deep breath and reached out to flip the cover open. _Malleus Mallardeficarum_ was burned into the title page in heavy, Gothic letters, the brownish, iron-gall ink giving the impression of old blood. The next page contained a map of northern France picked out in exquisite detail, the colours rich and unfaded.

The next few pages were full of dense, hand-lettered, and ornate script, with illuminated marginalia of birds down the side — most notably, ducks. The language was unfamiliar, but did not appear to be English or French.

Turning another page revealed a title followed by what looked like a list of ingredients or instructions. Neville looked up hopefully.

“What’s this? It looks like a potion, or spell, or something? Can you read it, Professor?”

Dumbledore cleared his throat and fiddled with his glasses. “Hmm… yes, my Latin is rather rusty, but… yes, indeed. It’s a recipe for Duck à l’Orange. From Rouen, I believe. “

There was a moment of stunned silence.

“You’re kidding?! And that?” Harry asked, pointing at the facing page, which contained a different list.

“Pan-Roasted Duck Breasts with Sherry, Honey, and Thyme Sauce. Ooh, I must ask the house-elves to try that, it sounds delightful!”

“This thing’s a _recipe book_?” Ginny said incredulously.

“Why, yes. You’re in the introduction; it provides a historical perspective of the evolution of duck recipes in Normandy.”

“So where does _Malleus Mallardeficarum_ come into it?” Neville asked hopelessly.

“Ah. That’s the main section of the book. It’s a history of what they also refer to as Blacksmith’s Pressed Duck. Rather than all that unseemly business with par-cooking and squeezing out the blood, they simply de-boned the bird, put the flesh in a muslin bag, and hit it repeatedly with a large hammer before simmering with butter, cognac, and lemon.”

“That’s _it_?”

“Well, a good splash of port rounds off the sauce, but, broadly speaking, yes.”

Neville slumped back in his seat. “Oh, good grief. Guys, I’m really sorry, I’ve completely wasted your time. And Luna-”

She quacked and put her hand on his arm in consolation, but Dumbledore fixed them with a disappointed look.

“Mr Longbottom, is your wand merely a polished stick? Is the Sword of Gryffindor just an oversized letter opener? Or, indeed, the Goblet of Fire simply a gaudy drinking vessel? An object does not need to shine or sparkle to show that it has magical power, and I would have hoped that four years at Hogwarts had taught you this.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Ginny swallow. _The diary,_ he realised. _She knows this better than anyone._ Tentatively, he put his hand on hers, and she gave him a startled look for a moment before gripping it tightly.

Meanwhile, Dumbledore continued, “I can assure you that I can feel the power in this book, even if we do not yet have the key for unlocking it.”

“Have you still got that history of the Holy Roman Empire, Neville?” Ginny asked. “Read that part about Rudolf and Philip again for us. There’s got to be something in there that can help us.”

Chastened and red-faced, Neville rummaged around in his bag and produced the relevant book, quickly flipping it open.

“‘And Rudolfus strukke hym downe with the mightee power of ye great tome, and thus did Philip arise cured of hys strange afflixion once mor.’” Neville chewed on his lip. “Any ideas, anyone? Professor?”

“It is a knotty one, isn’t it? I can only assume that the method of employment was so well-known at the time that the author saw no need to record it.”

“Struck him down. Struck him _down_.” Neville forced out a breath and dragged his hands through his hair. “It could mean anything. I mean, he was a muggle! For all I can tell, he might’ve hit him over the head with it.”

“You could always try it and find out,” Harry pointed out, half-joking. “What have we got to lose?”

“And, besides the obvious, what harm can it do?” Neville said desperately. “Sorry, Luna.”

With that, he hoisted the book into the air and brought it down smartly on the downy head. There was a deep, shimmering chime like an old bell, and Luna’s eyes crossed briefly.

“Ah… ah… _ah_… _achoo_!”

A huge cloud of white feathers shot into the air, obscuring her from their view. Somewhere in the maelstrom, something fled from the room, quacking furiously, and, as the feathers began to settle, they saw the familiar, blonde head of their friend back where it ought to be.

Luna spat out a last few feathers and looked around. “Oh. Just when I was getting the hang of it, too,” she said, in her normal voice once more.

“Luna! You’re all right!” Neville said breathlessly. Harry and Ginny just looked on, open-mouthed.

“Well, of course I am,” Luna said calmly. “I suppose it’s nice to be back in my proper shape again, Daddy was getting anxious. The Giant Squid will be disappointed, though, he’s been trying to teach me some of the games he plays to amuse himself. I’m sure I was starting to get the hang of Squidditch.”

“_Squidditch_?” Harry burst out before he could stop himself.

Luna’s silvery-grey, rather protuberant, eyes locked on his. “Of course, it’s played under water and they have to do their own propulsion rather than sit on brooms. Its very popular in the Marianas Trench. How did you find this book, then?”

“Oh. Err-”

Harry felt Ginny’s foot press on his.

“It was all Neville,” she said.

“Yeah, he worked himself ragged on this.”

Neville flushed and looked at his feet. “Someone had to try something.”

“And you have shown remarkable diligence and persistence, Mr. Longbottom. I’d say your efforts are easily worth fifty points to Gryffindor, but more importantly, you have rescued one of your friends and fellow students, and I suspect you have learned a lot about yourself throughout this, too. I hope you can take confidence from it. Well done, indeed! And as for you, Miss Lovegood, I hope you have also learned from this sorry episode.”

“Yes, Professor. Duck pellets are really quite tasty, once you get used to them.”

Harry, Ginny, and Dumbledore exchanged a look. Yes, Luna Lovegood was well and truly back to normal.

“Not quite the lesson I was looking for, I must admit, but I suppose it shall do for now. I should like to talk to you tomorrow, Miss Lovegood, after you have had a chance to rest and recover.”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Excellent! Well, in that case, I think it is time for you to return to your dormitories. It’s been quite a thrilling day.”

“Good night, Professor!”

“And thank you,” Luna added softly.

It was only once they were back in the third-floor corridor that Neville, Ginny, and Harry blew out a deep breath.

“I can’t believe we did it,” Neville said.

“You did all the hard work, Neville. I’m sorry we weren’t really much help,” said Ginny.

“You believed in me and you offered, and that helped more than you think. I didn’t see anyone else tripping over themselves to help.”

“I guess the most important thing is that Luna’s all right,” Harry said. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” said Luna vaguely. “I suppose I should head back to Ravenclaw Tower and see what inventive things my house-mates have done with my belongings.” She took a deep breath and suddenly seemed to fade into focus, her usual, distant persona gone and her eyes sharpening. “Thank you. All of you.”

Harry said nothing, rather stunned by the sudden revelation of a much more focussed Luna Lovegood than he had encountered before, but Ginny didn’t seem overly surprised.

“What will you do now? Are you going to go home for Christmas?” she asked.

Luna shrugged, and was suddenly back to her usual, vague, slightly dotty, self. “I might. Daddy will be anxious to see me. I’ll talk to Professor Flitwick tomorrow and see.”

“There’s the Yule Ball coming up, too,” Neville pointed out.

“Oh, yes. Ginny, you’re going with Harry, aren’t you? You must be pleased.”

Ginny coughed awkwardly. “Err… yes.”

“Oh, good. She does talk about you an awful lot, Harry.” Ginny turned puce, and Harry just gaped at her, but she simply carried on as if she hadn’t noticed. “What about you, Neville?”

“I wasn’t really thinking much about that, to be honest,” he said. He shuffled his feet and took a deep breath. “U-unless you’d like to go with me, Luna?”

She stared at him in surprise — for a fraction of a second longer than was comfortable. “Yes, I think I will. After all, it might be fun.”

“Really?” Neville asked breathlessly, hope and excitement lighting up his face.

“Really.”

Harry felt Ginny tug at his sleeve, and they tried to slip away down the corridor as quietly as possible to give their friends some space, but before they went, they didn’t miss Luna smile and pat his cheek.

“It’s all right, Neville, I’ve always thought you’re rather ducky.”

* * * * *

  


* * *


End file.
